Mississippi is not one of the states where Democrats typically anticipate House and Senate gains. However, Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom may be giving his Republican opponent a run for her money in the November midterms. National news outlets, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Politico suggest the seat may be in reach for Democrats. Senator Cory Booker even joined Colom on the campaign trail.
Now, Colom stops by to chat with Jen about how Mississippians are reacting to data centers and post-Callais voter suppression efforts. The pair discuss why Colom’s experience as a District Attorney prepares him for the Senate and what his “new direction” for Mississippi entails.
Scott Colom is the Democratic nominee for Senate in Mississippi. Since 2015, he has served as the District Attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. I am delighted to have the Democratic nominee for Senate from Mississippi, Scott Colom. Welcome, Scott.
Scott Colom
Thank you so much for having me, I’m honored to be here.
Jen Rubin
It is wonderful to have you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You’re a district attorney in the 16th Judicial District. For those of us not from Mississippi, where is that and what do you do as your day job?
Scott Colom
Yeah, so the 16th Circuit is in northeast Mississippi. I represent four counties. I actually got elected when I was 32 years old. I beat a 30-year incumbent in a race most people thought I had no chance to win. And it was because my predecessor had a track record of sending innocent people to prison. In fact, there’s a, there’s a Netflix documentary all about him called The Innocent Man. And so I just couldn’t stand that injustice and I had the courage to run against him. I was able to beat him and I’m proud of my record as district attorney, and I’m gonna take that, take that same fight for justice to DC.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. One of the things you are running on is an anti-corruption platform that has become such a huge issue. Tell us what are the issues you’re looking at, and whether that is resonating now with voters as they see what the Trump administration is doing.
Scott Colom
100%. I mean, if you look at it, the people of Mississippi have been betrayed. They were promised America first. They get Mississippi last. Higher grocery prices. We’re in another endless war. 400,000 Mississippians don’t have health insurance. Another 100,000 are going to lose health insurance next year, at least because of the big, beautiful betrayal. And so you look at all those betrayals and while Mississippians are suffering, we got people in D.C. making more money than ever. The president made $2.2 billion last year. A lot of it was a crypto scheme where he stole from his own supporters. And here’s what frustrates Mississippians, is not only do you have that corruption from the president, our junior senator, she is allowing it to happen, and she’s partaking in it. Right now, all across Mississippi. There’s a super PAC running an ad on her behalf. It’s a positive ad that really misrepresents her record. But anyways, at the end of it, you realize it’s paid for by an AI and data center super PAC, and the reason they’re doing those ads on her behalf is because she sits on the committee with jurisdiction over AI and data centers, and she sold out Mississippi at a time when people are struggling.
Jen Rubin
The president says AI can regulate itself, that data centers should be able to be built wherever. What are you hearing from voters? Is that what they want?
Scott Colom
100% not. I mean, everything I’m hearing is concern and worry, and the reality is it goes back to the corruption that we’re seeing because they don’t trust that we’re being looked out for. They, they’re they’re rightfully concerned and it’s just a corporate welfare about billionaires making more money than ever and so you look at. you know, what’s going on in Mississippi. There’s one data center, for example, that’s in Ridgeland. It’s already adding $100 a year to utility costs in that area for consumers that are already struggling with high prices. So that’s why I call for a temporary moratorium on data centers. We gotta make sure no corporate welfare. Why are we giving corporate subsidies to billionaires and millionaires? They got to pay for their utility costs. They should be able to, you know, they’re not gonna share their profits. They should be able to pass on the cost to consumers. Third, we got to have local control. We have to make sure our governor and president aren’t forcing these data centers on communities that don’t want them because listen, you know, if data centers are so great, why don’t Cindy Hyde Smith put one next to her barn in Lincoln County, right? I mean, you know, don’t force on communities that don’t want them.
Jen Rubin
These folks don’t seem to think that voting is a great idea. They made voting much harder. They’ve redistricted. The Callais decision is wiping out a whole generation of African American and also Hispanic lawmakers, primarily in the South, but around the country. Do voters understand that this is now an issue that they need to think about when they go into the ballot box? In other words, is democracy finally on the ballot?
Scott Colom
100%. I’ll tell you, I always end my speeches with the importance of voting rights and it it it’s what moves people the most because maybe they don’t understand the nuances of Section 2 when minority majority jurisdictions, but they understand that we have corrupt leaders that are carving up Memphis in a way to make sure those voters don’t get to pick the leaders of their choice, but the, the, the corrupt leaders get to pick the voters that matter. And so what I always tell people is. In Mississippi, we’ve been ground zero for sacrifice. I mean, our ancestors Lost their life. They lost jobs. They went to prison, all for us to have the one power we needed in this moment. They knew that the only way to fight this level of corruption and betrayal was to have the power to vote, because there’s only one thing that each of us have in common with Elon Musk. He got one vote and we got one vote. And so people in Mississippi understand this is a moment when we have to stand up and honor our ancestors. But also honor our grandchildren and our children to make sure they inherit a democracy and voting rights that we got from our ancestors.
Jen Rubin
If your opponent, Cindy Hyde-Smith, is very proud of her record, apparently she is, she thinks things are going great, why hasn’t she agreed to debate you? Will she debate you? I mean, why is she hiding?
Scott Colom
Listen, not only will she not debate me, she won’t do a town hall. She hadn’t done a town hall in 6 years. At this point, I’ve probably done at least 75 town halls all across the state of Mississippi.
Jen Rubin
Wow.
Scott Colom
Red counties, blue counties, you know, I really believe in campaigning and listening and learning from voters. So not only will she not debate me, she won’t do a town hall. And what it is, it’s not disrespecting me, right? Like, I’m OK. I’m gonna keep campaigning. Is she disrespecting the voters? She’s telling the voters, I don’t care what you think. I don’t want to take any of your questions. I don’t want to have to answer for anything I’m doing. What she wants to do is lie and hide. And the reality is she’s running, she’s running hundreds of thousands of negative ads against me. So if anybody out there that thinks we can’t win Mississippi, somebody better tell Cindy Hyde Smith because she’s spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to make sure I don’t win, and that’s because she has nothing to run on. She’s betrayed the voters, and I’m running on a common sense, positive vision for Mississippi, higher wages. We gotta raise the minimum wage. We haven’t done it in too long. We gotta have no income tax rate. Federal income tax for anybody making under $75,000. People need money in their pockets right away. Lower costs. The tariffs have been terrible for Mississippi. The, you know, the war in Iran has been terrible for Mississippi. We gotta get our voice back on those issues, and last but not least, we have to save our healthcare and save our hospitals. So I’m fighting for Mississippi, she’s fighting for the donors in D.C.
Jen Rubin
Mississippi is a relatively rural state. Talk to us a little bit about what healthcare has done with the impending Medicaid cuts, and those are really gonna hit next year in full force. What has it been like for rural America?
Scott Colom
Yeah, it’s already a catastrophe because we were relying on the subsidies on the Affordable Care Act. I think we’re like the one, two, we’re top three states relying on those subsidies, right? So our Republican insurance commissioner. He admitted 200,000 Mississippians lost health insurance this year because our junior senator voted for the subsidies to go away. And I’ll tell you, I had a… I actually posted a video this Monday of a voter I talked to in Ottumwa County. who told me she has her own business, she’s in counseling, she was able to get health insurance the last couple years because of the subsidies that made, insurance on the Affordable Care Act, actually affordable for her, and that when those subsidies went away, she wasn’t able to afford health insurance this year. So this is a woman who no longer has health insurance, has to worry every day about an emergency happening, going bankrupt because she can’t afford costs that suddenly accrue to her, and she’s been betrayed. I mean, that was a terrible decision. And then, like you said, we haven’t even felt the pain of next year because another 100,000 at least are are gonna lose health insurance next year because of the Medicaid cuts. Right? We’re gonna have half a million Mississippians who are not gonna have health insurance. We’re gonna have 8 rural hospitals that are gonna be at risk of closing. So my message to Mississippians and everybody out here, listening to this podcast, they have to understand that Mississippi. Healthcare and hospitals are on the ballot, and I promise to do everything in my power to restore the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, to cancel those Medicaid cuts, to save our healthcare and save our hospitals.
Jen Rubin
If you have a Mississippi person who says, I’m not on Medicaid, but if that rural hospital closes, what happens to healthcare? What happens to the economy of that whole area?
Scott Colom
Well, that’s such a great question, and I’ll tell you what happens, because I can tell you what a doctor told me. I had a doctor named Dr. Rush, she’s an emergency room physician, and she said that even if you have health insurance, what does it matter if your hospital is over capacity? Because they still have to treat people that don’t have health insurance. It’s just uncompensated care. The doctors, they can’t pay the doctors, they can’t pay the administrators. You know, they’re gonna have to be doing more Zoom and AI, all this stuff that doesn’t really, you know, give you the personal touch you need. And what she said is, she gave me a story that was very concerning. She said she had a close friend of hers who went to UMC. who had health insurance. UMC is our biggest hospital in Jackson. She went to our biggest hospital, she had health insurance. Because of how many people were there ahead of her? She waited hour after hour after hour, and because she had mild conditions. So, she goes home saying, listen, I’m gonna try again tomorrow. Well, she doesn’t wake up the next day. She had blood clots. So, the reality…even if you don’t, even if you have health insurance, what does it matter if your hospital can’t see you? What does it matter if there’s no hospital there?
Jen Rubin
Wow. You have a lot of very patriotic Mississippians, a lot of veterans, a lot of people in the military, a lot of people whose kids are in the military. Talk to us a little bit about how concerned you are about the way the military is being run. We’ve just retreated from the UK, pulled our bombers out. We’re engaged in this war. Seems to be a lot of chaos in the Pentagon. What do you want to see happen if you go to Washington in terms of basic management competency in the military?
Scott Colom
Well, listen, I had the honor of talking to some veterans in George County, Mississippi, which is a, you know, a relatively conservative county on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, and I had two veterans show up at a town hall I did there, and they told me they’re completely embarrassed by our Defense Secretary. He’s clearly in over his head, he’s focused on personal vendettas. accruing power for himself, he’s mismanaging the war, he’s firing generals for no reason. They said it’s chaos. It’s chaos, and they feel betrayed because they understand what that means for the people in uniform. They understand what it means for veterans, and they told me they wanted oversight. They said, you gotta get oversight right away when you’re elected to the United States Senate. You gotta let the, you know, the Secretary of War realize that he’s losing this war because he’s allowing personal vendettas to get in the way of good policy. And the other thing is we gotta make sure we get Congress’s power back when it comes to when we go to war. We’ve, I mean, our junior senator has completely abdicated her responsibility. She’s doing nothing to stand up for Mississippi families, veterans, service people. She’s just MIA. I mean, how embarrassing it is to be in war and not do one town hall to explain to people who are, you know, having to risk their loved ones. You know, dying because they’re serving our country and you won’t even explain to them why it’s justified, what’s the end game, what’s our strategy, you know, I mean, it’s just embarrassing. So, you know, we gotta bring power back to Congress because we’ve got a, you know, a, a defense secretary that’s really embarrassing the people in uniform.
Jen Rubin
If there’s a young person out there, maybe a college student or someone out there working or retiring, anyone in Mississippi. They’ve seen a lot of elections, and at this point, they may have the feeling, my vote doesn’t matter. The same old, same old. You need a lot of people to turn out, and people who don’t usually turn out for elections. What’s your closing message to them, to people who maybe haven’t voted, or they’re registered, but maybe they just show up at a presidential election? What do you say to them?
Scott Colom
Well, first of all, I’ll say thank you because you already showed up for me. On March 10th, we had a primary that almost got no national attention. I mean, you know, almost nobody paid attention to my primary. We didn’t have a bunch of money to, you know, do a bunch of TV ads. We did it the grassroots way. We got down there and we campaigned. We increased turnout by 90%. The gap between Democratic primary voters and Republican primary voters was only 8000. You compare that to some other states that people say are more competitive, they had a bigger, way bigger gap. So, you know, the people did that. It was folk that typically don’t vote in a primary for a midterm. And what we’ve done, we’ve built on that by continuing to campaign to, you know, I got a food truck where I take it to the housing projects. I give away, tacos, you know, our junior senator said that if you can’t afford beef, pick another protein. So we got pick your protein tacos. So either chicken or tacos, chicken or beef. So we go to the… we go to the voters. So I’m gonna continue to do that. God willing, we’ve been able to raise money to get our message on TV and on digital, so we’re exciting people. We’ve got some national leaders that are gonna help bring attention to our state. And so my closing argument to the voters, it’d be young voters, Democratic voters. Independent voters, really, even Republican voters, if you’re okay with high gas. High groceries, half a million Mississippi not having health insurance, corruption that’s embarrassing to our values. It’s very clear that you should just vote for our junior senator, because she’s allowed all that to happen, and she’s basically telling you, I’m not gonna do anything different. She’s not gonna change anything. If you want somebody that’s gonna fight for lower grocery prices, lower gas prices, gonna fight the corruption that’s ruining our country. save our healthcare, save our hospitals, actually focus on what’s best for Mississippi, it’s clear that Scott Clark is the candidate for you, because I’m offering a new direction. Things are not going well, I’m offering a new direction, a fighter for Mississippi, and that’s… and that’s why we’re gonna win, because people know we gotta go in a new direction.
Jen Rubin
Well, Trump says there’s things have never been better, so I guess that’s a point of dispute. Scott, if people want to get more information about your campaign, they want to give you a few bucks, or they want to go out and help, or they just want to know more about you, what do they do?
Scott Colom
Go to Scott Colom.com. I’m honored to have anybody support. Also, follow me on social media. I’m basically on everything and I keep it interesting. I like to, you know, give people my personality because I don’t have anything to hide. I got a beautiful family. I’ve got Mississippi values and, you know. I thought our country, it was best for Mississippi.
Jen Rubin
Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure, Scott. Best of luck in the homestretch. Folks, Mississippi is in play. Watch that state. If you’re interested in donating… Scott gave you the information, you can get involved. Thanks so much, we look forward to seeing you, maybe on election night. Talk to you later.
Scott Colom
Bless you. Bye.
