'We are on the rise': Democrats hail first Black senator to win a Mississippi seat since 1874

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Democratic challenger Scott Colom is on track to defeat incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi election for the United States Senate, the Associated Press…

Democratic challenger Scott Colom is on track to defeat incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Mississippi election for the United States Senate, the Associated Press projected on Thursday, making him the Southern state's first Black senator since the Reconstruction era that followed the US Civil War.

The result was a stunning upset in the heavily Republican state and expanded on the national drubbing the Democrats delivered to US President Donald Trump's Republicans in the 3 November midterm elections.

It was also a historic victory for African Americans in a former slave state that was a hotbed of repression during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The Mississippi Senate race was one of the last races to be called after the elections. The contest was so tight that Colom at times led the vote count by only a few dozen votes.

The latest media-tabulated results showed him ahead by more than 4,500 votes, or 0.5 percentage points.

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Addressing a gathering of supporters who celebrated his victory with "Senator-Elect Colom" signs, Colom said there were times his long-shot campaign felt defeated but "I had to have faith".

"There were times that I couldn't get donors to answer the phone," Colom said. "They did not believe a moment like this was possible. But I kept the faith."

"There were times when I was tired, and I felt like I couldn't keep going, but I kept the faith, and that is another tradition of our state," he said.

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