An alumni photo of Scott Colom from the University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository. He graduated in 2009.
UW Law grad Scott Colom makes history in Mississippi Senate election
Now a district attorney, Colom will be the first Black senator from the state in nearly 150 years. He graduated from the law school in Wisconsin in 2009.
This article was originally published by The Badger Project, a citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
Democrats have won back majorities in the U.S. House and Senate in November’s midterm elections, and University of Wisconsin Law School graduate Scott Colom’s Senate campaign in the Deep South, which many had written of as unwinnable, contributed to the wave.
Democrat Scott Colom has defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, news agencies are now projecting. His victory adds to the Democratic majority, bringing it to 55 of 100. It is also the eighth U.S. Senate seat flipped by Democrats in 2026.
His journey to this historic candidacy ran through the Badger State.
Colom graduated from the UW Law School in 2009 and was awarded the 40 Under 40 Award from the Wisconsin Alumni Association in 2020. His time at the UW Law School “strengthened his resolve to change the criminal justice system from within,” Colom said in an interview with the school’s alumni magazine in 2020.
Colom said he chose to attend the UW Law School because of the school’s Criminal Appeals Project, a clinic for second- and third-year students to work on cases where defendants want to appeal their convictions, according to a 2009 feature on him in the alumni magazine.
“The Criminal Appeals Project gave me the opportunity to have real clients, to talk to people about their problems and to listen to their needs,” Colom said.
He will join nine other U.S. senators throughout history who attended the UW Law School, including current Sen. Tammy Baldwin, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Of those nine senators, six represented Wisconsin.
Colom is no stranger to making history in public service. After his graduation, Colom became the youngest and first Black civil court judge appointed in his home county in eastern Mississippi in 2011. He is now the district attorney for the state’s 16th Judicial District, a position he was first elected to in 2015. In that race, he defeated an incumbent of more than 25 years.
The voters of Mississippi have never elected a Black U.S. senator, and the state has not been represented by one since 1881 during Reconstruction after the Civil War, when senators were still chosen by state Legislatures. That senator, Blanche Bruce, was born into slavery and replaced in Washington, D.C. by a slave owner and Confederate colonel.
According to a 2025 Census estimate, nearly 37% of Mississippi’s residents are Black, the highest in the nation.
An action Hyde-Smith took against Colom several years ago may have led to her defeat. After then-President Joe Biden nominated Colom to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge in the state’s Northern District in 2022, Hyde-Smith refused to submit a “blue slip” to the Judiciary Committee approving Colom. The blue slip is a tradition, not a law, that gives U.S. senators a way to block judges from their state that the president appoints. The state’s other Republican senator, Roger Wicker, did submit a slip in favor of Colom. And two other former governors of Mississippi, both Republicans, supported his nomination.
Colom is the son of two attorneys. His mother, Dorothy Colom, was the first Black judge elected in the court near his hometown of Columbus. Scott Colom and his wife Nadia have two daughters.
This story was funded by a grant from Press Forward’s Election Integrity Fund.
The Badger Project is an independent news nonprofit in Wisconsin.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
