A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Last night in Mississippi, the U.S. Senate race was finally called. And history was made.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The state is now sending the first Black senator to Congress in nearly 150 years.
MARTÍNEZ: Elise Catrion Gregg of Gulf States Newsroom and Mississippi Public Broadcasting was at Senator-elect Scott Colom's victory party in Jackson - joins us now. Elise, what did the senator-elect have to say?
ELISE CATRION GREGG, BYLINE: Good morning. Well, first and foremost, he said a lot of thank-yous to his wife, his two young daughters, his campaign team and the voters. Colom has been confident for months that he'd win. And he certainly took the time to recognize that, but he also acknowledged that he didn't do it on his own.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCOTT COLOM: It's not something that I did, y'all. It's something that we did.
(CHEERING)
COLOM: All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this.
(CHEERING)
COLOM: I had the courage to believe in Mississippi.
GREGG: It was a tight race, though. And Colom, who ran on healthcare access and affordability, won by just shy of 5,000 votes, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate race in nearly four decades and the first African American since Reconstruction.
MARTÍNEZ: I'm going to guess that the energy was high last night.
GREGG: Oh, yeah. I was at that rally and his watch party a week ago on election night. And if energy was high on election night, it was through the roof yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) We want Scott. We want Scott. We want Scott.
GREGG: People I spoke with last night just seem proud. You know, there was a lot of joy, a lot of excitement and no small amount of relief. The rally was at Tougaloo College, a historically Black institution. So plenty of students were there, including Nukia Tullis (ph), who's also a Mississippi native.
NUKIA TULLIS: It's just a thrilling experience, personally. It just goes to show that anything is possible. You're never too small. And your dreams are never too big for you to accomplish, and to just keep going, because this is truly amazing.
GREGG: And everybody had signs and banners cheering Colom on.
MARTÍNEZ: What do you think this means - this win means about the Deep South? What do we learn?
GREGG: Well, first, that issues of affordability and the impacts of policies like the Iran war have become financially untenable for voters across the board. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith ran on her record and her support of President Trump, and that's simply no longer a winning strategy. And voters were clear about their opposition to any restrictions on their right to vote. Mississippi hasn't redistricted yet, but there's clear dissatisfaction with the Louisiana-versus-Callais decision, which significantly gutted the Voting Rights Act. And Mississippians faced voter inactivations after the secretary of state switched systems to check voter rolls. That could have made voting urgent for people here.
And this race may also say that change is coming nationally and that the South, which is often overlooked, is investable for Democrats. And they'll need to keep up in the region.
MARTÍNEZ: Any chance that there'll be challenges from state Republicans?
GREGG: Yeah, that seemed highly likely while votes were still being counted, but now not so much. Hyde-Smith conceded in a video posted to her social media Wednesday night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CINDY HYDE-SMITH: While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters. I want to congratulate Scott Colom and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state.
GREGG: And the state Republican Party congratulated Colom on his win and campaigning. So we may have a quiet wrap to this race with these concessions.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's Elise Catrion Gregg of Gulf States Newsroom and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Thanks a lot.
GREGG: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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