Mississippi was in the spotlight yesterday for President Donald Trump. Less so was the state’s incumbent senator whom Trump parachuted in to rally for.
Monday, the president held one of his signature rallies in Corinth, in Alcorn County, where he won nearly 84 percent of the vote in 2024, to stump for Sen. Cindy Hyde Smith and Mississippi Republicans in their re-election bids.
It took more than an hour for Hyde-Smith to take the stage alongside Trump and she said fewer than 10 words. Wearing a black pantsuit and white blouse, Hyde-Smith took the stage next to Trump. “Is this not the best president in our lifetime?,” she said amid applause, before exiting the stage.
Earlier this year, Trump said Hyde-Smith declined his offer to hold a rally in her home state. Now, with Election Day one week away, Hyde-Smith is in a tough fight against Democrat Scott Colom, the elected district attorney from a little more than 100 miles away, in Columbus.
Colom also appeared at the venue, talking with and, in some cases, taking selfies with people waiting in line to enter the 7,700-seat arena.
“Walking the line outside the Trump rally in Corinth, I was reminded that more unites us than divides us here in Mississippi. I heard from folks who want to get foreign money out of our elections, put an end to flock cameras, keep our border secure, and make sure our veterans are taken care of,” Colom stated on a widely shared social media post.
How close the race actually is remains unknown. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating last week of the Mississippi Senate race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican,” a notable, if still modest, change in a state where Republicans have dominated statewide elections for years and where a Democrat last won a U.S. Senate seat was in 1982.
Another widely shared poll of likely general election voters conducted in mid-April found that Colom had narrowed the gap with Hyde-Smith, trailing then by only 3 points in both a head-to-head race and in a three-way race with independent candidate Ty Pinkins. Less than a year earlier, an SPLC Action Fund survey conducted in June 2025 found Colom behind by 13 points at that time. Little public polling on the race has been published since.
The Corinth rally was Trump’s fourth campaign appearance in Mississippi for Hyde-Smith since 2018. It came on the same day the White House sent an official press release touting the trip without mentioning Hyde-Smith.
“Under the leadership of President Trump and Republicans, Mississippians are benefiting from historic tax relief, surging private investment and job creation, stronger rural healthcare, major support for farmers, and new resources for the state’s defense and shipbuilding industry,” the release stated.
The president’s nearly 90-minute-long remarks struck similar chords. Both the release and his comments focused on the tax law, farm relief, shipbuilding and support for ranchers. Both touted the law’s Social Security provision and its changes to the estate tax, which Trump pitched as protection for family farms passed down to the next generation. Both also pointed to $12 billion in trade relief for farmers. The release noted that Mississippi’s share was more than $147 million, paid to about 3,700 producers.
Defense spending on the Gulf Coast was another shared theme. Trump credited Sen. Roger Wicker with helping deliver nearly $400 million “to bring shipbuilding back to Gulfport and Pascagoula.” The release cited a $99 million Navy contract to Ingalls Shipbuilding and a $283 million contract for the Navy’s new FF(X) frigates. Both also nodded to cattle producers: Trump urged ranchers to rebuild their herds, and the release highlighted two executive orders he signed in September to support them.
Hyde-Smith has faced criticism for supporting Trump policies that have hurt ranchers and farmers, including his tariffs and instigation of a war with Iran that has exacerbated rising costs for agricultural producers and consumers. She also attracted scorn when she said of consumers facing high beef costs that they could choose another protein.
Seeing opportunity to flip the state, outside groups have spent more against Mississippi’s junior senator than those have supporting her, according to an analysis by The Mississippi Independent.
Trump is the only federally elected Republican from outside of Mississippi to endorse Hyde-Smith, although his endorsement carries outsized influence in deeply conservative areas of the country.
Meanwhile, Colom has racked up endorsements and campaigned in the state with national figures including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President and 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris and a host of U.S. senators.
Image: A screenshot from the rally in Corinth of Republicans President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (via C-Span)
As much disdain as I have for CHS, reporting on what she was wearing is misogynistic. I don’t believe it was intended to be, I just felt it needed to be said.