Democrats need to make a net gain of four seats this fall to gain control of the United States Senate. Where might they come from? North Carolina? Sure. Ohio? Likely. Maine? Yes. Alaska? Good chance. Iowa? In play. Texas? With James Talarico against one of the most corrupt politicians in America, Yep. Florida? Outside chance. A few observers are even beginning to suggest — ironically because of the Supreme Court’s destruction of the Voting Rights Act outraging and motivating black voters — that there is some possibility that Lindsey Graham could lose in South Carolina.
But Mississippi? Are you out of your mind? Well, I may be. Maybe Andy Borowitz is, too. On Sunday, he wrote a fascinating analysis of the vulnerability of incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. After quoting his essay in full, I’ll add some comments of my own.
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Today we’ll look at a US Senate contest that’s been very much under the radar, because it’s in a state long considered solidly Republican: Mississippi.
The last Democratic senator in The Magnolia State was John C. Stennis, first elected during the Truman administration. Could Democrats end that lengthy dry spell this November?
It would be a huge upset, but they have a secret weapon: the Republican incumbent, epic assclown Cindy Hyde-Smith. Because when Cindy opens her mouth, anything can happen.
In 2018, Mississippi’s Republican governor, Phil Bryant, tapped Hyde-Smith, the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce, to replace Senator Thad Cochran, who had resigned for health reasons. Seven months later, she faced former US Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy in a special election to serve the remainder of Cochran’s term. And that’s when Cindy, the Mouth of Mississippi, started making headlines around the world—for all the wrong reasons.
Hyde-Smith became the author of her own catastrophe at a campaign event in Tupelo three weeks before the election. After a rancher named Colin Hutchinson praised her to the crowd, she cheerfully reciprocated, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”
People ignored her eccentric choice of preposition—generally, one sits in the front row, not on it—and focused on how deeply offensive her zest for public hanging was, given Mississippi’s notorious history of lynching. According to the NAACP, of the 4,743 lynchings that occurred in the US between 1882 and 1968, 581 happened in Mississippi, more than any other state. Seventy-two percent of those lynched were African American—as was Hyde-Smith’s Democratic opponent, Espy, who called her comment “reprehensible.”
The backlash was swift and brutal, as corporate donors fled Hyde-Smith’s campaign. Walmart tweeted from its official account, “Sen. Hyde-Smith’s recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates. As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations.”
Coming to Cindy’s financial rescue was a white knight—emphasis decidedly on white. A businessman named Peter Sieve with a history of Nazi-adjacent utterances gave her campaign the maximum individual contribution, $2700. Hyde-Smith grappled with the thorny moral issues raised by such a donation by quietly cashing his check.
But Cindy’s piehole was just getting started. Speaking in Starkville, the home of Mississippi State University, she floated this modest proposal: “[T]here’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So, I think that’s a great idea.” If voters were going to be disenfranchised, Cindy seemed to be suggesting, she wanted to be on the front row.
After declaring her enthusiasm for public hangings and voter suppression, what abhorrent box did Hyde-Smith have left to check? If you guessed “posing for a photo wearing a Confederate hat,” you’ve been paying attention.
A week before the election, Politico unearthed a (now-deleted) Facebook entry from 2014 in which Cindy posted just such a pic as she gushed about her visit to the home of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. “I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir,” she wrote. “The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi. This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!”
If anyone wondered where Hyde-Smith got the brilliant idea of dressing up as a Rebel soldier, that mystery was solved a few days later. The Jackson Free Press revealed that she had attended the Lawrence County Academy, a “segregation school” established in 1970 to enable white parents to avoid sending their children to an integrated one. A member of the cheerleading squad, Cindy is shown third from right in the yearbook photo below, posing with the school mascot in Confederate army attire.
As surreal as this photo is, it’s far from the most bizarre content to appear in a Lawrence County Academy yearbook: that would be the description of Hyde-Smith as the “wittiest” member of her class. (I had to read it several times to be sure it didn’t say “whitest.”)
On Election Day, Cindy’s enthusiasm for Confederate headgear repelled enough voters to turn what should have been a Republican romp into a nail-biter. Cindy saw off the challenge from Espy, but just barely.
Since then, Hyde-Smith has had years as an incumbent to endear herself to Mississippi voters. That’s gone about as well as Jefferson Davis’s presidency.
In the Senate, Cindy has been a reliable firehose of inanities, perhaps most memorably in 2024, when she blocked a bill offering federal IVF protections by claiming that it could lead to the creation of “chimeras.” In case you’re a little rusty on Greek mythology, the creature Hyde-Smith sought to ban boasts a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. Lest you accuse her of bias against all mythological creatures, Cindy expressed no explicit opposition to gorgons, griffins, and centaurs.
Given Hyde-Smith’s howler-laden track record, it’s not surprising that a new poll by Impact Research indicates that 55% of Mississippi voters have an unfavorable view of her and 53% would rather vote for someone else. And those numbers could get even uglier, thanks to two issues that might prove to be her kryptonite: inflation and Iran.
Hyde-Smith has been a full-throated supporter of Donald Trump’s disastrous Middle East misadventure, which, at 60 percent disapproval, is his second-most despised demolition project after the White House ballroom. Voting against a resolution that would have limited Trump’s use of military force against Tehran, she declared, “President Trump is taking decisive steps to eliminate the Islamic Republic of Iran’s decades-long campaign of deadly attacks against Americans and our national interests.”
Unfortunately for Hyde-Smith, those decisive steps have helped jack up food prices, a subject she’s addressed with a nonchalance so jaw-dropping, it rivals her Senate colleague Joni Ernst’s legendary take about Medicaid cuts: “Well, we all are going to die.” Asked in a local TV interview about rising beef prices, Cindy offered this helpful tip: “You know, you have so many proteins to choose from.”
I’m struggling to picture hordes of Mississippians at July 4 barbecues flinging tofu and tempeh on the grill. But instead of shopping for an alternative protein, Magnolia State voters might be considering an alternative senator. This year, Democrats have nominated a formidable opponent, Scott Colom, who—in a particularly delicious plot twist—owes his candidacy to none other than Cindy Hyde-Smith.
In 2023, Colom, a district attorney from Northeast Mississippi, was Joe Biden’s pick to be U.S. District Court Judge for the state’s Northern District. Cindy blocked his nomination, citing his support for trans rights and his backing by the Great Liberal Satan, George Soros. (While announcing her opposition to Colom, who is African American, Hyde-Smith was careful not to wear a Confederate hat.) Three years later, Colom is highly motivated to send her packing. According to the poll by Impact Research, he trails Hyde-Smith by only 3 points. And when voters are informed about the candidates’ positions, he actually pulls 3 points ahead.
Though conventional wisdom still favors Hyde-Smith, Democrats have started taking Colom’s chances seriously: earlier this month, a super PAC called American Bridge 21st Century poured $2 million into his campaign. Could Colom pull off a shocker? The recent string of Democratic upsets in ruby-red locales suggests that Cindy shouldn’t count her chickens—or any other proteins. The election is still more than four months away, more than enough time for the Mouth of Mississippi to alienate voters. And if, on election night, Cindy Hyde-Smith winds up conceding defeat, I’ll be on the front row.
So, is there a realistic chance that Scott Colom could be a United States senator representing Mississippi come January?
[Full Disclosure: Scott is a former student of mine at Millsaps College. He is a great person and I fully support his candidacy.]
I am well known to be a congenital optimist, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. That said, yes, I believe the race at this point is a tossup and Scott has a real chance to win. Here are a reasons:
Cindy Hyde-Smith is very much a lightweight. She is among the “Republicans” in Congress who are hand puppets on one of Donald Trump’s small hands, with Trump as the ventriloquist. She has done almost nothing for the people of Mississippi.
The nationwide trend against Trump is very strong. That will result in some Mississippi voters defecting to vote against his stooge. More important, it is likely to lead to many people who voted for him not to vote at all in 2026.
Mississippi’s population has the largest percentage of African Americans in the nation, roughly 37 percent. If 95 percent of them vote for the Democrat, it takes only about 24 percent of the white and other voters (55 percent of the population is classified as Non-Hispanic white, 4 percent as Hispanic, 3 percent mixed race, 1+ percent Asian) to reach a majority.
As is being evidenced in South Carolina, Georgia, and other southern states, the essential obliteration of the Voting Rights Act by “Republicans” on the Supreme Court have black people in Mississippi outraged and highly motivated to vote.
Scott Colom is an articulate, intelligent, and empathetic person. Cindy, whom some white Mississippians refer to as “Minnie Pearl,” not so much. If she agrees to debate him, he will likely win easily.
On the other side of the balance sheet:
Mississippians rarely vote against incumbents.
If Hyde-Smith is perceived to be in danger of defeat, Republicans and their billionaire allies can pour unlimited amounts of money into attacks on Colom, and they will not hesitate to make up anything they can think of to throw at him.
Democrats, with much less money, are unlikely to send much to Mississippi (though a relatively small amount can go a long way in the state).
An “independent” black candidate, Ty Pinkins, is in the race and could draw some votes away from Colom. It should be clear to everyone that a vote for Pinkins can only help Hyde-Smith. Surely Republicans will use some of their excess cash to promote him to voters otherwise likely to vote for Colom.
Four of five major political prognosticators have the Mississippi senate race as either “Solid Republican” or “Safe Republican.” In late May, though, The Economist moved Mississippi to “Likely Republican.”
I am of the opinion that the anti-Trump wave across America is rising to such a level that it can lead to Democratic victories in seemingly unlikely places.
However, Trump and his minions are also of that opinion and they are likely to take any action they can think of to prevent a free and fair election. That includes declaring a nonexistent “insurrection” and putting into effect the Insurrection Act and either cancelling the elections entirely or having troops and ICE agents at polling places to intimidate voters. Almost surely, such groups of Trump thugs as the “Proud Boys” will be hanging around polling places in precincts likely to vote Democratic.
I’ll have more to say about that and the history behind it in a later essay.
Here is my most insanely optimistic map for the 2026 Senate Races:
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