COLUMBUS, Miss. — On paper, Mississippi's U.S. Senate race seems like the perfect place for a political upset this year, an assertion President Trump's Monday rally there seems to support.
It has the highest share of Black voters in the country, at close to 40%. It's a rural, agriculture-heavy state that is also among the poorest, so higher prices are felt harder.
But President Trump won the state by 23 points in 2024, and it's extremely racially polarized, meaning not enough white voters back Democrats for the party to win statewide.
In a midterm environment that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Senate races in conservative-heavy states like Iowa, Texas, Ohio and Alaska, and a last-minute flood of cash to Kansas, the Magnolia state has been left off of many peoples' radar — and largely out of campaign investments.
Scott Colom, a district attorney and the Democratic Senate nominee in Mississippi, told NPR that's a mistake.
"The reality is, Mississippi has never been a lost cause, we've been a betrayed cause," he said. "The Democratic Party has not been trying to win Mississippi. Let's stop kidding ourselves, right? They spent hundreds of millions of dollars in other states. They spent almost nothing in Mississippi."
Colom is challenging incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, who blocked his nomination to be a federal judge during the Biden administration.
In the final weeks of the election, both parties have rushed to spend millions of dollars in Mississippi, as national polling shows a pathway where Democratic enthusiasm and elevated Black turnout, combined with fewer Republican base voters and defections from the party, has made deep red races deeply competitive this cycle.
'The moral compass of this country is gone'
At a rally for Colom in his hometown high school gym Thursday, about a thousand people showed up to hear the candidate — joined by former Vice President Kamala Harris — give his closing message.
Many attendees expressed optimism for his campaign coupled with a vibe of feeling down about those in power, regardless of party affiliation – citing the war in Iran, rising fuel costs and dissatisfaction with Trump's second term.
That includes Celestine Rice, who said many people were realizing a need to focus on bringing change to the political system and representation.
"Before, we didn't realize how bad it was, but now it's obvious," she said. "The moral compass of this country is gone."
Rice said many people took for granted an era where it seemed the country used to be more focused on taking care of its citizens and now they see that "big money, it doesn't trickle down like they said."
The brunt of the Democratic money and manpower headed to Mississippi is driven by a growing number of those who argue the party's future runs through the South, including Harris, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
At the rally, Harris said political changes in the last year and a half were the result of "the most callous, corrupt and incompetent presidential administration we have ever experienced."
"We've been going through that range of emotions from anger to sadness to depression, all of that for a year and a half," she said. "Well guess what? We're 12 days out from an election. And it's time to turn that anger into action."
'Most radical Senate candidate'
About a hundred miles up the road a few days later, Trump, Hyde-Smith and other Mississippi Republicans gathered in Corinth to motivate the party's base to show up and vote next Tuesday.
In a statement ahead of the rally, Hyde-Smith's campaign manager expressed confidence in her reelection bid.
"We are confident that Mississippians will once again send Cindy Hyde-Smith to the U.S. Senate," Jake Monssen said. "Senator Hyde-Smith and President Trump have built a strong working relationship, and she gladly accepted when President Trump offered to help rally voters and support her get-out-the-vote efforts.
"With so much at stake in this election, Mississippians deserve to hear directly from their President about the consequences of electing Democrats, the radical socialist policies being pushed by Scott Colom, and the importance of this election. Team Cindy looks forward to a successful, high-energy event in Corinth," he said.
Speaking ahead of the president, Hyde-Smith touted accomplishments from her time in office and said the choice facing voters "could not be clearer."
"We know what we're looking at: this is socialism versus capitalism, and we know that," she said. "Communism versus democracy, and big government versus the free market. It could not be higher stakes."
Hyde-Smith repeatedly reiterated that it was important for Republicans to get out and vote.
"Endorsements don't win elections, votes win elections," she said.
For his part, Trump said his visit to Mississippi was because Hyde-Smith was in good shape in her matchup.
"Sometimes when you think somebody's doing so well, nobody votes," Trump said. "'Oh, Cindy's great, she's gonna do no problem, let's stay home.' And then bad things happen, Cindy. That's why I'm here, just get out and vote."
Over the last month, the Republican campaign strategy has been to highlight the investment and attention from national Democrats as proof Colom is too extreme for Mississippi — and have spent heavily on ads saying as much.
"Meet the most radical Senate candidate in our lifetime, Scott Colom," an ad titled "Most Radical" intones. "Twice nominated by Biden, beholden to the far left. As DA, violent crime doubled on his watch."
The Hyde-Smith campaign has spent more than $1.3 million on that ad, according to data from AdImpact.
But Democrats have spent more this month, about $5 million to the Republicans' $3.2 million, with a message that there's no daylight between the unpopular president and down ballot Republicans.
Colom thinks voters agree.
"I mean, the reality is if somebody's doing a good job, it's hard to beat them," he said. "If Cindy Hyde-Smith was focused on the voters, it'd be tough. But it's very clear the voters of Mississippi want to fire her."
Black voter turnout key
The race carries weight beyond Mississippi, or even control of the Senate. It's become a stand in for conversations about the power of Black voters in the South.
Many Southern Republican-led states have rushed to redraw Congressional maps that remove opportunities for Black voters to elect candidates of their choice after a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year rolled back part of the Voting Rights Act.
In Mississippi, Republicans have signaled a desire to redraw state legislative and judicial races after the midterms, and Colom said it could extend even further into local elections.
"What that tells us is you're trying to take away power from the voters and give it to the leaders," he said. "That's not how democracy is supposed to work. The voters have to pick the leaders, not the leaders pick the voters.
In a statewide race that can't be gerrymandered, and in an environment favorable to Democrats, history and math still prove to be a challenge. The last Democratic Senator from Mississippi came in the early 80s. The last successful Black statewide candidate was during Reconstruction.
Even during the 2018 blue wave, Cindy Hyde-Smith won a special election for this seat by roughly 7 points.
Still, there are many factors that have both parties anxiously awaiting results on Nov. 3, including a pervasive anti-incumbent streak that has shown up in polls and primaries this election cycle coupled with a significant increase in Black voter turnout in states that have early voting.
Ashley Kennedy Shelton, who runs a nonpartisan civic engagement group in Louisiana, told NPR earlier this month that people of all stripes have been expressing frustration and a desire for change.
"I think you're going to see voters truly show up, because folks are just tired," she said. "They're like: 'This doesn't work, and it hasn't been working for quite some time.' I think you're going to see it at the ballot box.
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