That is a headline one did not expect to write just a few weeks ago. The count in the race for the US Senate seat in Mississippi concluded yesterday with a victory for the black Democrat, Scott Colom. He defeated incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith with 49.2% of the vote to her 49.7%, a difference of about 5,000 votes total. The after-action report on this race will show that Senator-elect Colom was not taken seriously by the Republican Party until it was too late. Arguably the most racist state in the union based on past behavior, Mississippi decided to elect a black man rather that accept that $6.50 a gallon diesel is the new normal. The question now is whether the Democrats can establish enough infrastructure in Mississippi to keep the seat.
Mr. Colom is the first black person elected to the US Senate by Mississippi’s voters in history. Blanche Bruce was a black senator from 1873-1883, during Reconstruction, but this was before the 17th Amendment that allowed for election of senators by popular vote. Prior to the amendment that passed in 1913, state legislatures selected the upper chamber’s members.
There is a delicious karmic dimension to this race. Joe Biden had planned to appoint the new Senator-elect to the federal bench. The custom is that the senators from the state where the appointment will be have a veto over candidates. Rarely is the power exercised. In this instance, Ms. Hyde-Smith withheld her support leaving the 43-year-old prosecutor free to run for the US Senate. Had she allowed the appointment to go through, it is doubtful she would have lost. He is an exceptionally good candidate for the state, and a lesser man or woman would not have worked enough to win. Ms. Hyde-Smith found out what it means to be hoisted on one’s own petard.
The count took a week because of the election laws in that state that have been designed to make it difficult for people without a lot of time or money to vote — a vestige of the Jim Crow era. The state has no early voting, and those wanting to vote with absentee ballots must have a reason — unlike a great many jurisdictions where one need not explain why an absentee ballot in needed. Polls in the state are only open for 12 hours, 7 am to 7 pm. And a photo ID is required at the polling site. People who do not have an ID on them are allowed to cast an affidavit ballot (called provisional ballots in other places), and they have a week to go down to the county offices with the ID to “cure” the ballot, allowing it to be counted. The state also allows mailed ballots to arrive as late a week after polling day, so a final count could not happen before yesterday.
Analysts are saying that this race, when taken together with all the other Democratic victories last week, has reshaped the South and American politics. While it is evidence that such a change may be occurring, history suggests that a few more elections will need to go the Democrats’ way before one can conclude that this is not an aberration. Mississippi has a governor’s race next year, and that will be a confirmation or contradiction of that premise. And of course, the 2028 election will provide even greater clarity.
No matter what happens in the South to the Democrats in future races, Ms. Hyde-Smith’s departure is welcome. On November 2, 2018 in Tupelo, Hyde-Smith said after a man introduced her to an audience, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” Public hangings in Mississippi mean lynchings. Anyone who finds that a source of entertainment is unworthy of the title “human.”
Mr. Colom is not a Democratic Socialist nor is he a firebrand activist. He is a lawyer from a conservative state. One anticipates he will be closer to the Blue Dogs than Bernie Sanders. In fact, electing more legislators from the South will put a brake on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, for good or ill.
The Democrats now have 55 Senate seats (if one includes Mr. Sanders and Maine’s Angus King who are independents caucusing with the Democrats), and Alaska has yet to be decided. This puts the GOP in a deep hole for winning the chamber back as the 2028 map leaves them defending 18 seats to the Democrats’ 16.