Scott Colom was 28 years old when he first made history.

Lowndes County appointed him to serve as a justice court judge, making him both the youngest person and the first Black person ever to hold the position.

And that was only the beginning.

A few years later, Colom became the first Black prosecutor for the city of Columbus.

Then, in 2015, at just 32 years old, Colom challenged a district attorney who had held office for nearly three decades.

And he won.

The victory made Colom the first Black district attorney ever elected in Mississippi’s 16th Circuit Court District.

And he was reelected twice, most recently with more than 56 percent of the vote.

Eventually, even Washington noticed.

President Joe Biden nominated Colom to the federal bench in 2022.

Mississippi’s senior senator, Republican Roger Wicker, supported allowing his nomination to proceed.

But Mississippi’s junior senator, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, did not.

Without Hyde-Smith’s support, Colom’s nomination stalled.

Four years later, Scott Colom is running to make history again.

But this time, he is running to unseat Hyde-Smith, the woman who blocked his nomination, as one of Mississippi’s United States senators.

And Colom has built a strong statewide campaign worthy of the moment.

Federal Election Commission records show he had already raised nearly $2.4 million by the end of June.

That’s more than twice what Mississippi’s previous Democratic Senate nominee raised during his entire election cycle.

But the money is only part of the story.

Colom has spent the campaign doing something powerful, but remarkably simple.

Showing up.

He has traveled across Mississippi and held numerous town halls, taking questions directly from voters again and again.

The campaign has also developed a sophisticated digital presence that has allowed those appearances to reach far beyond the rooms where they happened.

And slowly, people outside Mississippi have begun paying attention too.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Democratic donors are increasingly directing money toward the race.

The Washington Post reported that national Democratic leaders and donors have begun taking greater interest in a Mississippi contest that historically would have received far less attention.

Of course, Colom is just one man on the Democratic ticket.

But his statewide campaign has increasingly become the most visible expression of a Mississippi Democratic Party that believes the state is ready for a fundamental political shift.

That is a heavy burden to place on one candidate.

But there is something fitting about Scott Colom being the one carrying it.

Because when his career is viewed as a whole, a pattern emerges.

At nearly every stage, the opportunity in front of him has gotten bigger.

And Colom has kept showing up and delivering results.

Now he is showing up at a particularly consequential moment for Mississippi.

The threat of redistricting looms large over the Mississippi Democratic Party.

For older Mississippians, there is a history involved in all of this that is impossible to ignore.

There are people alive today who grew up in a Mississippi where Black citizens could lose their jobs, their homes, or even their lives simply for attempting to exercise political rights.

The significance of this moment is difficult to miss.

And at a time when Mississippi Democrats badly needed someone capable of mounting a serious statewide effort, Scott Colom showed up.

Now, in that same Mississippi, a Black district attorney from Columbus is asking voters across the entire state to send him to the United States Senate.

It is a difficult task.

No Mississippi Democrat has won a United States Senate election since John Stennis was reelected in 1982.

But there is reason to have hope.

Mississippi as a whole has struggled with voter participation.

And roughly 35 percent of Mississippi’s voting population is Black, giving Black voters an enormous role in determining outcomes.

But historically, that political power has not translated into representation in the United States Senate.

Mississippi has never elected a Black United States senator.

That makes the question before Mississippi in 2026 larger than one campaign.

Scott Colom has spent his career breaking down barriers.

But the barrier he’s trying to break down now, he can’t bring down by himself.

On November 3, Mississippi voters will decide whether Scott Colom makes history yet again.