CBS News projects that Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi. Hyde-Smith conceded Wednesday night. Somewhere, a political map needs a moment alone with its crayons.

Trump won Mississippi by twenty points in 2024. The state last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1982. Republicans had every historical reason to feel comfortable, which is a wonderful quality in a sofa and a less reliable campaign strategy.

Colom, a district attorney, campaigned on living costs and healthcare. National Democrats only announced their first advertising investment in the race last month. So even the people trying to win apparently needed convincing that the voters were allowed to do this.

A Senate seat is an election, not a fucking timeshare. You don't keep it forever because somebody signed something during the Reagan administration.

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This isn't proof that one issue explains every vote. CBS describes affordability problems and the unpopular Iran war as headwinds for Republicans. The count stayed close for days before Colom's lead grew. There was an actual contest here, with actual people, inconveniently absent from the color key.

The projected result gives Democrats an eighth Senate flip and at least 55 seats, with Alaska still unresolved in CBS's update. Colom is set to become Mississippi's first Black senator since Reconstruction.

Hyde-Smith accepted the outcome and wished him well. Good. An incumbent can lose and still recognize what the job was.

The parties should take notes. Voters aren't decorative little residents of the red and blue shapes. They're the people who get to change the locks.