Mississippi's Senate seat flipped: Scott Colom, a Democrat, knocked off incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, and the call landed a full week past election day. His lead kept climbing once a key county wrapped its count, which is how a race everyone had written off turned into a genuine upset. That puts Democrats on 56 seats to the GOP's 44, Alaska in the mix. For Republicans to keep any path toward Senate control in 2028, New Hampshire has to go their way. The history is the part worth sitting with: Colom becomes the first Black man sent to the Senate from Mississippi since Reconstruction. Blanche Bruce was the last, elected in 1874, born into slavery before that