All eyes are on Democrat Scott Colom as a candidate with the potential to unseat a Trump-aligned Republican incumbent and change his own party’s 40-plus years of U.S. Senate losses.
Colom is technically the 15th Democrat nominated for a Mississippi U.S. Senate seat since the last year a member of the party won. That number is slightly deceptive, though, given that two of the previous candidates—Erik Fleming and Mike Espy—each ran twice, meaning there were 15 candidacies by 13 individuals. In two of the cycles in between their races, no Democrat appeared on the general election ballot.
The last time the Democrats still had the political clout to elect a U.S. senator was 1982. The following is a thumbnail history of Democratic U.S. Senate candidates following the party’s loss of overwhelming public support in the 1980s.
1982
By this year, John C. Stennis had been in the Senate since a 1947 special election was called to fill the seat opened by U.S. Sen. Theodore Bilbo’s death. In the 1982 election, Stennis had run the Senate’s Armed Services Committee from 1969 to 1980. At 81, he drew a 34-year-old Republican challenge from lobbyist Haley Barbour, who made age the issue. Stennis took 414,099 votes to Barbour’s 230,927, carrying 64.2 percent and all but two counties. He did not run again in 1988 and left office in January 1989. No Democrat has won a Mississippi Senate race since.
1984
William Winter, an influential Democrat, had just finished his four-year limited term as governor, having earned accolades for shepherding through the Education Reform Act, when he took on Mississippi’s other U.S. senator, incumbent Thad Cochran. Cochran beat him 580,314 to 371,926. Winter took 39.06 percent of the vote.
1988
Wayne Dowdy, a Democratic congressman from the Fourth District ran for the seat Stennis was vacating but lost to Trent Lott, 510,380 to 436,339. Dowdy took 46.09 percent, closer than any Democrat has come to winning a U.S. Senate race since. He raised $2,889,015 against Lott’s $3,847,126, marking the only time during the post-1980s era that a Mississippi Democrat has been within a million dollars of the Republican candidate.
1990
There was no Democrat on the ballot this year. Cochran ran unopposed by a major party candidate.
1994
Democrat Ken Harper, a lawyer from Vicksburg, took on incumbent Lott but lost the election 418,333 to 189,752, taking 31.2 percent of the vote. The amount of campaign funds Harper raised is not retrievable from the Federal Elections Commission, where the finance volumes for those years are unsearchable scans. Filings reviewed by The Associated Press in February 1996 showed Harper closing out the campaign with $538 on hand and more than $59,300 in obligations, almost all of that personal and bank loans he had made to his own campaign.
1996
James W. “Bootie” Hunt of Ackerman lost to Cochran, 624,154 to 240,647, taking 27.39 percent of the vote, the weakest performance by any Mississippi Democrat in this period. The FEC lists Hunt as a candidate but reports no financial data at all for the 1995-1996 cycle. In February of that year the Associated Press, going through the commission’s records, found no report on file from him.
2000
Troy D. Brown Sr., a Democrat and political unknown, lost to Lott, 654,941 to 314,090, taking 31.59 percent.
2002
There was no Democrat on the ballot for U.S. senator from Mississippi in 2002. Steven Douglas Turney won the June Democratic primary with 52.23 percent and then withdrew. Cochran’s only opponent in November was the Reform Party’s Shawn O’Hara, who took 15.42 percent.
2006
State Rep. Erik Fleming, a Democrat, lost to Lott 388,399 to 213,000 and took 34.87 percent. Through Oct. 18, 2006, Fleming raised $43,157. Lott raised $2,480,556.
2008
This year was a special election to fill Lott’s unexpired term after he resigned. Former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove lost to Republican Roger Wicker, 683,409 to 560,064 and took 45.04 percent, the best showing by a Mississippi Democrat since Dowdy. He raised $5,372,412 to Wicker’s $6,227,613.
Also in 2008, Erik Fleming was again on the ballot but this time lost to Cochran, 766,111 to 480,915, taking 38.56 percent. Fleming does not appear anywhere in the FEC’s state-by-state listing of Senate campaign finance for that cycle, and the agency’s page for him still says the data is being processed.
2012
Democrat Albert N. Gore Jr. lost to Wicker, 709,626 to 503,467, taking 40.55 percent of the vote. He filed no campaign finance reports that have been published by the FEC.
2014
Democrat Travis W. Childers, a former congressman from the First District, threw his hat into the ring after Chris McDaniel nearly took the Republican nomination from Cochran. Childers lost, 378,481 to 239,439, and took 37.89 percent. He raised $691,776. Cochran raised $7,094,038.
2018
State Rep. David Baria, a Democrat from the Gulf Coast, lost to Wicker 547,619 to 369,567, taking 39.47 percent. He raised $904,539. Wicker raised $6,622,480.
In the 2018 special election, former agriculture secretary and congressman Mike Espy finished second in a four-way field and forced a runoff against Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. She won the runoff 486,769 to 420,819. Espy took 46.37 percent, the closest any Mississippi Democrat has come since Stennis. He also outraised her: $7,488,522 to Hyde-Smith’s $5,545,933.
2020
Espy again ran against Hyde-Smith in the following regular election, and again lost, 709,511 to 578,691, taking 44.13 percent. He raised $12,320,919, more than three times what Hyde-Smith raised and more than any Mississippi Democrat before or since.
2024
Ty Pinkins, a Democrat and a 21-year Army veteran with a law degree from Georgetown and no previous record in elected office, lost to Wicker 761,934 to 450,749. He had raised $887,198 through Sept. 30, 2024, and $1,047,306 through the end of the year. Wicker raised $9,850,511.
2026
Scott Colom, a Democrat who has been district attorney for the Sixteenth Circuit since 2016, is running against Hyde-Smith, who blocked his nomination to the federal bench in 2023. Through June 30, 2026, his campaign had reported $2,384,921.
Vote totals come from the Federal Election Commission’s official election results and, for 2024, from the Mississippi Secretary of State. Finance figures come from the FEC except where noted.
