Dem
47
GOP
53
Mississippi held its primary elections on Tuesday. The big news was that the old guy, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), beat the young guy, Evan Turnage, in the House primary in MS-02. But there were also Senate primaries. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) was renominated, as expected. On the Democratic side, Scott Colom, a district attorney, got the nod.
What is interesting here is that Joe Biden nominated Colom to be a U.S. district court judge and Hyde-Smith did not turn in her blue slip, thus killing the nomination. It is a Senate tradition that if either senator from the state where a judge will work opposes the nominee, no vote is taken and the nomination is thus killed. Clearly there is no love lost between Hyde-Smith and Colom. For the record, Hyde-Smith is white and Colom is Black. Colom couldn't be that bad because the other Mississippi senator, Roger Wicker (R-MS), turned in his blue slip and had no objection to the appointment.
Does Colom have any chance? Maybe, but not a big one. About 38% of Mississippians are Black, the largest percentage of any state. If every Black voter pulls the lever for Colom and they are joined by 20% of the white voters, Colom could win. However, getting 20% of white Mississippi voters to vote for a Black man is asking a lot, and that assumes every eligible Black voter actually votes. The last time Mississippi sent a Democrat to the Senate, it was the arch-segregationist John Stennis in 1982. The only thing that might get Colom over the line is a deep recession combined with high inflation, which might make just enough voters angry with the Republicans to vote for a Democrat just to send a message. (V)