GOP miscues give away Senate seats
Last night, Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom (D) was declared the winner of Mississippi’s U.S. Senate election over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, bringing the Democrats’ total to 55 seats for the 120th Congress. Once Alaska completes its vote count and Ranked Choice Voting tabulations, Democrats could add a 56th seat.
Since election night, when Colom was leading with a tiny 43-vote edge, his margin has steadily expanded. With only a limited number of ballots remaining to be counted, Colom now leads by 4,669 votes, a deficit Hyde-Smith can no longer overcome.
This result, along with the Republican loss in South Carolina, appears to be less a product of the national Democratic wave than of weak Republican campaigns. Mr. Colom spent approximately $4.5 million on his Senate bid, compared to roughly $6 million for Hyde-Smith. In today’s political environment, those are relatively modest sums for a U.S. Senate race.
Clearly, Republican spending proved insufficient as political trends in the state moved against the party’s nominee.
Cindy Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate in 2018 after Sen. Thad Cochran resigned due to health reasons. She then won a special election to fill the balance of the term later that year, but in unimpressive fashion. She scored just 41.2% in the jungle primary, just barely ahead of former US Agriculture Secretary and ex-Mississippi Congressman Mike Espy (D) who posted 40.9% support. She would defeat Espy in the runoff election, but again with a lackluster 53.6 – 46.4% margin, which is below the Mississippi Republican statewide average.
She returned to the ballot in 2020 seeking a full term and again faced Mr. Espy. While Hyde-Smith improved her margin, winning 54%-44%, her showing still lagged behind that of Mississippi’s senior Republican senator, Roger Wicker, who has averaged 59.5% of the vote across his three successful re-election campaigns.
Further evidence that the election was a loss for Sen. Hyde-Smith rather than the Republican Party can be found in the state’s four congressional races.
Reps. Trent Kelly (R-Saltillo/Tupelo), Michael Guest (R-Brandon/Jackson), and Mike Ezell (R-Pascagoula) won with 58.3%, 57.4%, and 61.0% of the vote, respectively. When Republican Ron Eller’s total in the 2nd District race against Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Brandon) is added to the aggregate total, Republican congressional candidates collectively received 492,140 votes compared to Hyde-Smith’s 468,667, a difference of 23,473 votes.
Considering that Hyde-Smith is likely to lose statewide by fewer than 10,000 votes, her substantial underperformance relative to the congressional vote underscores the weakness of her campaign.
The Colom campaign very adroitly turned a Hyde-Smith interview gaffe into a campaign theme that went viral and paved the way for the candidate’s upset victory. In answering a question about the high price of beef, Sen. Hyde-Smith responded that people have other protein choices. The Colom campaign then cut a series of successful ads that referenced her comment about choosing a different protein with the rejoinder that “I’d like to choose a different Senator.”
A similar dynamic unfolded in South Carolina. Sen. Darline Graham was originally appointed to serve in a caretaker capacity before President Trump publicly encouraged her to seek a full term. She ultimately proved to be an unprepared and ineffective candidate, struggling in public appearances and failing to build a strong campaign operation. Fundraising lagged throughout the cycle, and Democrats, sensing an opportunity, poured resources into the race. By Election Day, Dr. Annie Andrews held a 12-to-1 spending advantage over Graham.
As in Mississippi, other Republican candidates outperformed the Senate nominee. The results suggest that the South Carolina outcome was less an anti-Republican vote than an anti-Graham vote. Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was elected Governor in the same election, carried the state with 1,051,334 votes, while the seven Republican House candidates, five of whom won their races, combined for 1,031,274 votes. Sen. Graham, by contrast, received only 952,151 votes.
Major miscues on the Republican side are responsible for the party giving away two Senate seats, and in January they become six-year mistakes.
