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Hiram Revels became the first Black man in Congress when he took his Mississippi Senate seat in 1870. More than 150 years later, Mississippi voters have sent Democrat Scott Colom to Washington to follow him.
Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith essentially declared victory on election night, even with ballots still uncounted across Mississippi’s 82 counties. The count took days, and when The Associated Press finally called it, the seat belonged to Colom. He’s the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Mississippi since 1982. Black voters turned out in force for him, and his win headlines a 2026 midterms season full of Black political firsts.
A Senate Seat 150 Years in the Making
Revels held the seat for barely a year, and Blanche K. Bruce followed him with a full term from 1875 to 1881. The state legislature chose them both, and legislatures picked every U.S. senator until the 17th Amendment took effect in 1913. That makes Colom the first Black senator Mississippi voters have ever picked for themselves.
The two had history before this race. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Colom for a federal judgeship in North Mississippi, and Hyde-Smith blocked it. He stayed on as district attorney for the state’s 16th Judicial District and came back four years later for her seat.
“It’s so wonderful to have Scott Colom as our representative,” Maati Jone Primm told AP when Colom stopped by her store in Jackson. Marshall’s Music & Bookstore is recognized as the nation’s oldest Black-owned bookstore. On nearby Farish Street, where civil rights leaders once organized, residents greeted Colom as a historic figure. Close to 40% of Mississippians are Black, and the NAACP called this year’s turnout in Black communities historic.
Black Governors Make History in the 2026 Midterms
Before this election, only three Black Americans had been elected governor of a U.S. state, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is one of them, and voters there just gave him a second term. He’ll have a lot more company in January.
Georgia had never elected a woman or a Black person as governor until Keisha Lance Bottoms won this month. She is also the first Black woman ever elected governor in the U.S., and she ends 24 years of Republican control.
Florida’s first Black governor will be Republican Byron Donalds, who won the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis. Wisconsin waited 178 years for its own first, and voters there chose Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.
Aaron Ford taught math before he went into politics. He became Nevada’s first Black Senate majority leader and attorney general, then unseated Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo on Election Day. Ford will be the state’s first Black governor and the first Black governor of any state west of the Mississippi River.
New Faces in Congress and Beyond
Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is headed to the U.S. Senate, where she’ll join a small group of Black women who have served there. New Jersey voters sent Sen. Cory Booker back to sit alongside her.
Georgia’s Jasmine Clark won the 13th Congressional District. A microbiologist by training, she’ll be the first Black woman with a science PhD to serve in Congress.
ABC News projected that state Sen. Mike Reichenbach will be South Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor since 1876. Down in the Caribbean, Stacey Plaskett became the first woman elected governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
What Comes Next
When the new Congress convenes Jan. 3, House members will pick a speaker. Hakeem Jeffries could become the first Black person to hold the gavel. Until then, Eventnoire’s post-midterm guide has tips for holding all of these new officials to their promises.