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The race for Mississippi’s Senate seat is set for November and will feature a clash of a sitting incumbent battling a foe she once blocked from a lifetime judicial appointment.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., cruised to a victory in her primary to earn the GOP nomination for Senate in Mississippi. She beat Sarah Adlahka, a political newcomer who challenged Hyde-Smith’s effectiveness in Washington, D.C., since being appointed to the position in 2018.
Hyde-Smith is running for a second term in the upper chamber and, in deep-red Mississippi, is expected to hold onto her job in the GOP’s sprawling battle to maintain control of the Senate.
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Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., clinched the GOP Senate nomination in Mississippi as she eyes a second term in the upper chamber. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But she’ll face a Democratic opponent she’s dealt with before — just not on the election battlefield.
Mississippi District Attorney Scott Colom came out on top of his crowded primary to earn the Democratic nomination for Senate in the Magnolia State. He toppled U.S. Marine Corps veteran Albert Littell and Priscilla Till, the cousin of Emmett Till, who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in the 1950s.
Hyde-Smith and Colom have a history dating back to the Biden administration, when the lawmaker blocked his nomination to serve as a district court judge in Mississippi.
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At the time, she used the veto power each home-state senator has, known as a blue slip in the upper chamber, to weigh in on a judicial nominee — it’s a tradition that President Donald Trump has demanded be done away with to nullify Democratic resistance to his own judicial nominees.
Hyde-Smith told the Magnolia Tribune at the time that while she recognized that Colom was “smart and well-liked in his district,” she had concerns over his record.
Nathan Calvert, spokesperson for the Hyde-Smith campaign, told Fox News Digital in a statement that “Colom has never seen a Biden/Harris policy he didn’t like.”
“Senator Hyde-Smith is proud of opposing judicial nominations for extreme leftists who support a radical transgender agenda,” Calvert said. “She opposes allowing men to participate in women’s sports and believes we need judges who will take the same stance.”
“Senator Hyde-Smith believes we need to cut government spending, fight inflation (driven by excessive government spending), and reduce (not increase) our soaring national debt, and she’ll continue voting to do that,” he continued.
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Sunrise light hits the U.S. Capitol dome on Jan. 2, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“As someone with a strong interest in protecting the rights of girls and women, I am concerned about Scott Colom’s opposition to legislation to protect female athletes,” Hyde-Smith said. “The significant support his campaign received from George Soros also weighs heavily against his nomination, in my view. I simply cannot support his nomination to serve on the federal bench in Mississippi for a lifetime.”
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Meanwhile, Colom has gone after Hyde-Smith for voting against federal funding coming into Mississippi, which has consistently ranked as the poorest state in the country.
His website accused Hyde-Smith of not “working for us anymore, voting against Mississippi jobs and investments because it serves her donors’ agenda.”
Fox News Digital reached out for comment to Colom’s campaign, but did not immediately hear back.
