President Trump begins his last week of campaign travel before the midterm elections with a stop in Mississippi, a deeply conservative state where a U.S. Senate race has attracted millions of dollars in late spending, NPR's Stephen Fowler reported.
On paper, the state looks like a candidate for an upset in this political climate. Mississippi has the highest share of Black voters in the country, and it is rural, heavily dependent on agriculture and one of the poorest states, so higher prices hit residents harder. Still, Trump carried the state by 23 points in 2024, and its voting is extremely polarized along racial lines.
The Democratic nominee, Scott Colom, is a district attorney challenging Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. She blocked his nomination to be a federal judge during the Biden administration. Colom argues that national Democrats have long neglected the state. "Mississippi's never been a lost cause. We've been a betrayed cause," he said, adding that the party has spent hundreds of millions of dollars elsewhere and almost nothing in Mississippi.
In recent weeks, both parties have poured money into the race. Polling suggests a path in which Democratic enthusiasm, elevated Black turnout and fewer Republican base voters could make deep red contests competitive, along with a general mood of voters feeling down about those in power, regardless of party.
That mood was evident at a Thursday night rally in Columbus, Mississippi, for Colom, headlined by former Vice President Kamala Harris. Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg are also among the national figures who have backed the effort. Attendee Celestine Rice said the country's moral compass is gone and that people are realizing big money does not trickle down as promised.
Republicans have pointed to the national Democratic attention as proof that Colom is too extreme for Mississippi. Hyde-Smith has spent heavily on ads calling him the most radical Senate candidate in our lifetime and saying he is beholden to the far left. Democrats have countered with a message that there is no daylight between the unpopular president and down-ballot Republicans. Colom said that if Hyde-Smith were focused on voters, the race would be tough for him.
The contest carries meaning beyond control of the Senate. It has become a stand-in for debates over the power of Black voters in the South, after many Republican-led Southern states rushed to redraw congressional maps in ways that reduce opportunities for Black voters following a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year. Colom, who is Black, warned that the effort could extend to school boards and judicial elections. "The voters have to pick the leaders, not the leaders pick their voters," he said.
History and math remain obstacles. The last Democratic senator from Mississippi was elected in the early 1980s, and the last successful Black statewide candidate served during Reconstruction. In the 2018 blue wave, Hyde-Smith won a special election for the seat by roughly seven points.
Ashley Kennedy Shelton, who runs a nonpartisan civic engagement group in Louisiana, said she is hearing from people across the spectrum who want change and expects voters to show up. A notable surge in Black voter turnout in the primaries and in early voting is one reason Trump is holding a rally in the northeast corner of Mississippi in the election's final week.
