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BY Associated Press

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Democratic nominee Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged ballot counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.

Colom’s narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations despite having the largest share of Black residents of any U.S. state. The outcome adds to a decisive midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats’ argument that their future runs through the American South.

“All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this,” Colom told a crowd of hundreds who gathered at Tougaloo College for his victory party. “I had the courage to believe in Mississippi.…