COLUMBUS – Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Mississippi for Scott Colom on Thursday, calling the Democratic Senate nominee a historic candidate whose victory would send a statement that America has begun to reject President Donald Trump and his party.

Harris’ arrival followed a steady stream of campaigning for Colom by Democratic senators and a last-minute large investment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as Democrats grow increasingly hopeful that Colom can pull off an upset over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in ruby-red Mississippi. 

Speaking to an energized crowd at the Columbus High School gym, where Colom played basketball as a youth, Harris said Mississippi’s increasingly competitive U.S. Senate race is a fight worth waging for Democrats. 

“We’ve got 12 days to make history. And I’ve traveled here because, indeed, Mississippi Matters,” Harris said, referencing Colom’s campaign slogan. “The power is with the people. And the people are with Scott.”

Republicans appear to be taking Colom’s challenge seriously. The day before Harris arrived in Mississippi, party leaders announced on Wednesday that President Donald Trump will campaign for Hyde-Smith in the northeastern town of Corinth on Monday.

The crowd at Colom’s rally chanted “Mississippi Matters!” throughout the evening, and cheered, “We want Scott!” as Colom continued to connect the high cost of gasoline and groceries to Hyde-Smith’s approval of Trump’s war with Iran and tariffs. Colom delighted the crowd with his favorite label for his Republican opponent: “Cindy High Prices.”  

“She’s given away our voice, she’s given it away to her MAGA daddy,” Colom said.  

Harris said Trump is leading “the most corrupt administration in American history,” and that Hyde-Smith, a devoted Trump ally, deserves to lose. 

“The junior senator from Mississippi voted in favor of a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid,” Harris said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We deserve better.” 

Earlier on Thursday, Harris and Colom were at a community health center in Clarksdale for a roundtable discussion about rural healthcare. They were joined by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democratic member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation, whose district includes Clarksdale, as well as local doctors, a mother who lost a child as a result of inadequate healthcare access and other local leaders. 

Healthcare is an animating issue for voters in Mississippi, a state that has for years struggled with hospital closures and poor health outcomes. Mississippi, one of the nation’s poorest states, hasn’t expanded Medicaid, and many residents struggle to afford care. Throughout his campaign, Colom has hammered Hyde-Smith for voting for Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which slashed Medicaid funding. 

“Our junior senator is going to do nothing to fix rural healthcare in Mississippi,” Colom said. “She’s going to do nothing to fix hospitals in Mississippi. She’s made that clear. She’s got no solution. I’m offering solutions.”

Colom promised to work on reversing cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies. 

Harris said voters in areas such as the Delta have the opportunity to turn their hardships into action by voting for Colom. 

“People are feeling and experiencing pain, and the feeling of being unseen, unheard, alone, hopeless and therefore feeling powerless,” Harris said. “This is a moment where we can understand in this election season with less than two weeks to go, we can turn that pain into purpose.”

Harris’ trip marks her second visit to Mississippi in the past year. She came to Jackson in January for her book tour and spoke before a packed crowd. 

Harris has said in multiple recent interviews that she’s focused on helping Democrats win in November. But she’s not ruled out another presidential campaign after losing the 2024 general election to Trump.

In a statement ahead of the rally, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm said Colom’s embrace of Harris shows he is out of touch with voters in a state Trump won handily 

“Scott Colom is a Chuck Schumer-backed, George Soros-funded, Transgender Defender so out of touch with Mississippi that he is campaigning with Kamala Harris, who lost the state by 22 points,” said NRSC Regional Press Secretary Samantha Cantrell. 

With a little over a week left until the midterm elections, Mississippi has become a surprising battleground state where national party figures are swarming the state to energize their bases. Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will stump for Colom on the Gulf Coast on Tuesday. Those who have already visited Mississippi for Colom include Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Feeling confident about retaking the Senate and House majorities, Democratic leaders have begun to invest in Mississippi, a state that has long been solidly Republican in federal elections. But the state has the highest percentage of Black voters in the nation, a core voting bloc of the Democratic Party. 

If Mississippi, a state which hasn’t voted for a Democratic U.S. senator since 1982, were to elect Colom over Hyde-Smith, it would be an embarrassing rejection of Trump in the Deep South and prove a historic win in the state that hasn’t elected a Black person to a statewide or federal office since Reconstruction. 

Colom on Thursday seemed visibly moved by the possibility of Mississippi, a state that was the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement and where white supremacists actively worked for decades to disenfranchise Black citizens, potentially electing its first Black statewide official. 

He told the crowd that the state has a chance to write “a new chapter” on Nov. 3 and depart from its past where candidates used divisive and sometimes racist rhetoric to divide voters. 

“So many times throughout history that worked,” Colom said. “But not this time.”