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Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Scott Colom are continuing to travel across Mississippi before Tuesday’s midterm elections and make their final pitches to voters.
As voters across the country appear furious over rising prices, Hyde-Smith hopes to weather political headwinds that have sent Republicans scrambling to defend seats even in red states such as Mississippi. Democrats hope to flip the Senate and have begun looking at Mississippi as a dark-horse pickup opportunity.
Colom has tapped into dissatisfaction with high consumer costs under Trump’s watch, urging Mississippians to send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1982 and promising to lower costs and reverse cuts to social services such as Medicaid.
Hyde-Smith has promoted her close relationship with Trump and her support in Congress for his agenda, which has included tax cuts and cuts to social safety net programs, a crackdown on illegal immigration and efforts to curb fraud.
Independent candidate Ty Pinkins is also running, saying voters want a choice neither party is offering.
Hyde-Smith urges voters to show Mississippi remains ‘ruby red’
Over the past week and through the weekend, Hyde-Smith embarked on a bus tour, stopping in Flora, Grenada, Hernando, Holly Springs, Tupelo and Amory.
“Mississippians know what is at stake in this election, and we’re grateful for the tremendous support and encouragement we have received everywhere we have gone,” said Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager.
On Sunday evening, she came to Jackson for an event at Martin’s Downtown, a bar where many patrons typically come to watch football and share buckets of beer.
Hyde-Smith was introduced by U.S. Rep. Michael Guest, Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst and state Transportation Commission Director Brad White. The Republican officials said the race is theirs to win if they turn out voters, and urged supporters not to get complacent.
“We want a big win. We don’t want a little win,” Hyde-Smith said. “I want the rest of this country to know Mississippi is ruby red, and Mississippi is going to stay ruby red.”
On stage, Hyde-Smith called Colom “literally the most radical liberal” that has “ever run for office in Mississippi,” and said her conservative policies, such as keeping the border secure, would protect jobs and strengthen the economy.
In a brief interview with Mississippi Today after she walked off stage, Hyde-Smith said voters’ economic pain would be temporary, and that Trump’s war in Iran would keep America safe in the long run.
“Yes, the prices are high, and yes, the Iran conflict has caused that,” Hyde-Smith said. “We want to get on the other side of that, but today we’re not worried about a nuclear missile about to hit the United States because we took care of that.”
Hyde-Smith also stood by a response she gave in a television interview where she suggested that Mississippians upset over the high cost of beef remember that there are “so many proteins to choose from.” Colom’s campaign seized on the moment, crafting a viral ad that urged voters to “pick another senator” instead of picking another protein.
Hyde-Smith said her words were taken out of context.
“You know, gasoline’s expensive, and there’s not a lot of other choices. Or you ride a bicycle. But when a mother wants to feed her family meat, there are several to choose from. I buy gasoline, but there’s one product that’ll make that car go. And I never would take that out,” Hyde-Smith said. “I stand by that every single day.”
Colom repeatedly challenged Hyde-Smith to a debate, which she declined. Asked by Mississippi Today whether she wishes she had accepted the invitations, Hyde-Smith said Colom is “is totally to kill babies in the room. We have nothing to debate.”
Asked for clarification on the senator’s comments, Monssen confirmed she meant “womb” instead of “room” and was talking about abortion. He also said Colom’s policies were too “radical” to merit a debate.
Colom previously told the Commercial Dispatch that he has always been pro-life, but trusts women “to make the choices that are best for them.”
On Sunday night, Hyde-Smith said she was proud to chair the pro-life caucus in the Senate and said she helped double the number of Republican senators in the caucus.
Hyde-Smith was set to appear early Monday morning at Ingalls Shipbuilding on the Coast to greet workers during their shift change. She said she stood by her record working on the issues voters have spoken to her about on the campaign trail.
“As I travel throughout the state, there’s one thing that you know: people want a safe border because they want a safe country,” Hyde-Smith said. “People want solid economic policies because they want the dignity of a job. People want to be able to worship the way they want to worship with their families.”
Colom says he is the fighter Mississippi needs
Colom over the weekend made final pitches to voters in Ita Bena, Southaven, and Jackson. On Monday, he was scheduled to appear in Meridian, De Kalb and Macon.
Appearing at a Powers in the Pews event at Anderson United Methodist Church in Jackson on Sunday, Colom repeated his promises to fight for raising the minimum wage, advocate for access to rural healthcare and push back on attempts to weaken voting rights for Mississippians.
In the final days of his campaign, his pitch to Mississippians, including Republicans, was to argue that voters have been betrayed by a president who pledged to stay out of foreign wars, lower gasoline prices and tame the rising cost of goods.
“My message to every Republican voter in Mississippi is it’s time you got a fighter that’s going to actually hold the president to the commitments he made to Mississippi,” Colom said.
The Democratic nominee said that politicians like Hyde-Smith and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves have divided Mississippians and disparaged Democrats as a tactic to gain more votes. But he said Mississippi will never reach its full potential unless politicians learn to work together.
“That’s what they don’t understand,” Colom said. “That division and distraction have always held Mississippi back. We’re only going to reach our potential if we understand that we have to do it together. I truly believe that there’s nothing wrong with Mississippi that can’t be fixed with what’s right about Mississippi.”
As a closing argument, he told Mississippi Today that voters should ask themselves which U.S. Senate candidate has tried to earn their vote and lay out a policy plan for the next six years. The Democrat believes he’s the only candidate who has met voters face-to-face, while Hyde-Smith has hidden from them.
“She has not done one ad or one speech about what she’s said, what she’s going to do for Mississippi. Not one,” Colom said. “It’s clear she hasn’t campaigned. She refused to debate. She lies constantly.”
Colom was joined by Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson, former Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, NAACP President Derrick Johnson and Mississippi NAACP President Charles Taylor.
Kennedy told the crowd he’s invested in the Mississippi Senate race because of his family’s history with the Magnolia State, particularly when his grandfather, U.S. Robert Kennedy, made a historic visit to the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s to shed a spotlight on the abject poverty and malnutrition that Black citizens in the region were experiencing.
“Almost 60 years ago, my grandfather came to the Delta to see what Mississippi was,” Kennedy said. “On Tuesday, we get to show the world what Mississippi is.”
If Colom is successful on Tuesday, he will be the first Black person to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction, and the first Black U.S. senator from the state elected by popular vote.
Kennedy said that after Reconstruction ended, it slammed the door shut on Black citizens being able to vote and that no Black person has been able to become a U.S. senator since then. But, he said, Mississippi gets to “pry that door open again” on Tuesday.
