Scott Colom

Early life and education

Colom was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on December 24, 1982. His father, Wilbur Colom, also a lawyer, was the Republican nominee for state treasurer in 1987. His mother, Dorothy Colom, was the first Black person elected to a Mississippi Chancery Courts judgeship in their district.

Colom earned a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English and history from Millsaps College in 2005 and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2009.

Early career

After college, Colom worked as a teacher in Guyana for one year before enrolling in law school. After graduating from law school he worked as a staff lawyer at the Mississippi Center for Justice, a public interest law firm, from 2009 to 2011. He then managed the Colom Law Firm from 2011 to 2016 while serving part-time in various public offices until his election as district attorney; Colom was appointed the youngest and first Black justice court judge in Lowndes County history in 2011 at age 28, and from 2012 to 2013 he served as a municipal court judge in Aberdeen, Mississippi, and as interim justice court judge in Lowndes County. From 2013 to 2016, he served as part-time city prosecutor of Columbus, becoming the city's first Black city prosecutor.

Colom was elected district attorney for the 16th Judicial District of Mississippi (Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee, and Oktibbeha Counties) in 2015, defeating the nearly 30-year incumbent, Forrest Allgood. He was sworn in on January 4, 2016. He was the first Black person elected district attorney for the 16th Circuit and the first Black person elected district attorney to a majority-white voting district in the history of Mississippi. He ran unopposed in 2019 and was reelected. He ran for reelection in 2023, was unopposed in the Democratic primary, and was reelected with over 56% of the vote.

Notable cases

In 2012, Colom represented Taylor Bell, a student at Itawamba Agricultural High School who was disciplined by the school for publishing a rap song on Facebook that contained vulgar lyrics and criticized two coaches at the school. The district court dismissed Bell's challenge. A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the dismissal, finding that disciplining a student for purely off-campus activities violates the First Amendment, but the Court of Appeals reheard the school board's appeal en banc and upheld Bell's dismissal.

Through Colom's efforts, Eddie Lee Howard, who spent 23 years on death row for a murder conviction based on discredited bite mark evidence, was exonerated in 2021.

2022 U.S. District Court nomination

On October 14, 2022, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Colom to serve as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. On November 15, his nomination was sent to the Senate. Biden was nominating Colom to the seat vacated by Judge Michael P. Mills, who assumed senior status on November 1. On January 3, 2023, Colom's nomination was returned to the president under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6, of the United States Senate. Colom was renominated on January 23, 2023. Congressman Bennie Thompson initially recommended Colom for the role in a November 2021 letter to the White House.

Colom received support from Senator Roger Wicker, who returned his blue slip (a Senate tradition that gives the two senators from the candidate's state the ability to block or approve the candidate), but on April 4, 2023, it was announced that Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith would not return her blue slip, effectively blocking his nomination. Hyde-Smith cited as reasons for her opposition that Colom allegedly supported letting transgender students participate in girls' and women's sports and that he had received money from a PAC funded by George Soros.

On April 10, Colom wrote Hyde-Smith a letter asking her to reconsider her opposition to his nomination. In the letter, he said that he had not requested money from the PAC, did not know the money would be contributed, and did not receive money from the PAC when he was reelected in 2019. The letter also said he never discussed his policies or any decisions he made as district attorney with anyone from the PAC or with Soros. It disputed that Colom had ever taken a position on letting transgender students participate in girls' and women's sports; instead, he said, he had signed onto a letter with other district attorneys condemning the criminalization of gender-affirming surgery.

Colom's nomination received bipartisan support from Thompson, Wicker, and former governors Phil Bryant and Haley Barbour. On January 3, 2024, his nomination was returned to the president. Colom would go on to unseat Hyde-Smith in the 2026 U.S. Senate election in Mississippi.

U.S. Senate

2026 election

In September 2025, Colom announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in the 2026 Mississippi general election. He defeated Priscilla Williams-Till and Albert Littell in the March 10, 2026 Democratic primary.

In the November general election, Colom faced the incumbent, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, who had blocked his federal judgeship nomination, and an independent challenge from Ty Pinkins, the previous Democratic nominee for Senate. Despite polling aggregators predicting sub-10 percent chances of Colom winning the seat, he won by about half a percentage point, with CNN, the Associated Press, and other news outlets calling the race for him eight days after Election Day, when Hyde-Smith conceded. His win was dubbed the "upset of the century".

A noted highlight of the race was his campaign's viral ad criticizing Hyde-Smith's February 2026 remark, when asked about the rising cost of beef, telling Mississippians they "have so many proteins to choose from." Colom's ad featured Mississippians saying that instead of "picking another protein" they would rather "pick another senator". "Pick another protein" has been compared to "Let them eat cake." Colom is the first African American to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate since Blanche Bruce, who left office in 1881, and the first Democrat to represent the state in the Senate since John C. Stennis, who left office in 1989.

Political positions

Colom centered his campaign on helping working-class Americans and putting money back in their pockets. He opposes tariffs as "Mississippi last" policy by acting as an additional sales tax on buyers and applauded Senator Rand Paul for opposing them.

Colom opposes cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act due to the funding they provide for rural care and hospital systems.

Colom supports eliminating income taxes for anyone making under $75,000, starting with teachers and police officers. He supports eliminating corporate subsidies and other tax loopholes.

Colom supports law enforcement and will "work to secure the border and enforce our immigration laws".

On transgender rights, Colom stated: "I believe in fairness in girls' sports, and I don't believe in gender-affirming surgery for children".

Personal life

Colom has two daughters with his wife, Nadia Colom. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. His twin brother Andrew is a real estate developer in Detroit who also worked on Scott's U.S. Senate campaign. He has called Leo Tolstoy his favorite author and specifically referred to Anna Karenina as a source of wisdom.