- The narrative for the U.S. Senate race in 2026 will almost inevitably boil down to Donald Trump versus George Soros. Senator Hyde-Smith has Trump. She’ll almost certainly win.
U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith blocked Joe Biden’s nomination of District Attorney Scott Colom to serve as a federal district judge. Now, Colom, a Democrat from Columbus, is looking to even the political score. This week, after months of anticipation, Colom made his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Hyde-Smith official.
At the center of Senator Hyde-Smith’s initial objection to Colom serving on the federal bench was the means by which he became the District Attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District.
In 2015, a young Colom ousted longstanding District Attorney Forrest Allgood. Allgood was the subject of multiple controversies — from questions about his use of debunked bite mark analysis for convictions to serious allegations of racism. But Colom’s path to the seat involved a staggering contribution from far left financier George Soros.
In 2015, Soros was the sole reported donor to the Mississippi Safety & Justice PAC. That PAC then made over $700,000 in expenditures in support of Colom’s bid for District Attorney according to paperwork filed with the Secretary of State. That sum — the equivalent of what some statewide campaigns cost — is unheard of for a single judicial district.
The other big Mississippi recipients of Soros’ spending to remake the nation’s prosecutorial pool were current Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and former Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith. Owens is presently facing federal criminal indictment in a much publicized bribery scandal.
In short, Senate candidate Scott Colom has at his neck a millstone named George Soros. In some political circles that association is roughly equivalent to being in league with Lucifer.
On the flip side, Hyde-Smith carries the full-throated endorsement of President Donald Trump. There are some things with which this writer fundamentally disagrees on with the current administration, but in a sea of self-proclaimed “conservatives,” I recognize I occupy minority territory. Donald J. Trump is obscenely popular in Mississippi.
Colom has Soros. Hyde-Smith has Trump. Hyde-Smith will win that proxy fight 99 times out of 100. Of course, that’s not the only reason she’s the overwhelming favorite.
Democrats saw the performance of Brandon Presley in 2023 and got hyped that they were “close.” They confused Presley’s “success” with their own viability in Mississippi. But Presley is an ol’ yellow dog Democrat, and a unicorn. He still lost.
Colom is an affable, smart guy. But Colom is not Brandon Presley and Democrats are a ways off, and some population shifts away, from regaining viability in Mississippi. Maybe Colom knows that and has been promised a role in a future Democratic administration for giving it the ol’ college try.
It really doesn’t matter how many millions pour in from out of state. It doesn’t matter how fresh and clever the advertising campaigns are, or how many of the brightest 23 year olds the Democratic Party imports to run X (Twitter) accounts. Mississippi’s not ready for a Zohran Mamdani-style campaign. Like the old Pace salsa ads, Mississippi ain’t New York City.
If the first “official” week of the campaign is any indicator, it could be a fun food fight to watch, though, for political gadflies. Colom capped off his announcement night with a fake phone call to Hyde-Smith. It was a silly, and misleading, stunt. The Mississippi Republican Party, in turn, asked the Department of Justice to look into it. That was a stretch.
But all of these “inflection points” that writers like me will scrutinize are distractions from the “main thing.” Running for governor in Louisiana in 1983, Edwin Edwards famously quipped, “the only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” He won.
I don’t know exactly what a slightly less homophobic, more modern formulation would be, but whatever it is, that’s roughly what it will take for Hyde-Smith to lose this race.
Russ Latino
