After spending most of our adult lives in the Deep South -- and facing abuse at the hands of corrupt political forces in Alabama -- Mrs. Schnauzer and I are overjoyed at Scott Colom's U.S. Senate win in Mississippi

(WLBT 3, Facebook)

Having spent the vast majority of my adult life (35-plus years) in Alabama, the Deep South long has held a special interest for me. I married a Southern woman, worked for 25 years in various editorial positions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and built friendships with a wide variety of people, many of whom I remember fondly to this day. But a series of dark events led to conservative political forces causing me to be cheated out of a job I treasured at UAB, while Carol lost multiple jobs under mysterious circumstances that we've never quite been able to piece together. The ugliness led to a baseless lawsuit from Homewood lawyer and Republican political operative Rob Riley (the son of former governor Bob Riley). The lawsuit, alleging defamation over a series of Legal Schnauzer posts I wrote about the younger Riley's relationship with a lobbyist named Liberty Duke. My reporting never was proven false or defamatory in court -- in fact, Riley and Duke never even asked for a trial, a jury, discovery, or any other proceeding that might have proven their case -- or proven they had no case. Still Riley asked in court documents for my arrest because he claimed I had violated a court order; he also asked for Carol to be arrested, even though she had nothing to do with the blog posts in general. A corrupt judge named Claud Neilson (we later learned that the Rileys and Neilson were involved with Masonic lodges that were affiliated with each other and reportedly engaged in a number of dubious practices related to race; by law, Neilson had a disqualifying conflict and should have recused himself.)

On the evening of Oct. 23, 2013, Shelby County deputies -- led by Chris Blevins -- entered our property without stating their business or stating they had a warrant, much less showing one. Blevins walked into our open garage, where I had just parked our car, and did not comply when I told him to get out, violating U.S. Supreme Court precedent that prohibits warrantless entry into a private home to make an arrest. Blevins proceeded to beat me up, douse me with pepper spray, and drag me to a squad car (along the way, one of his colleagues threatened to break my arm while placing me in handcuffs.) I was taken to the Shelby County Shelby Jail, where I spent five months behind bars and became the only journalist in the Western Hemisphere to be arrested in 2013. My alleged offense was contempt of court for failing to remove the offending posts (even though such an order, short of a jury finding the posts were defamatory, violates decades of First Amendment lw). There was no release date for the contempt charge, so I might still be in jail if Carol had not managed to elude capture and get my story out to the world -- where it received nationwide coverage (including The New York Times) and even was discussed in an online forum in Russia). I remain grateful for various free-press advocates and organizations that came to my defense.

The fallout from all of this was devastating. While I was in jail, we fell behind on our mortgage, which we had paid timely and in full every month for roughly 25 years. Problems with the mortgage only began when Carol and I were cheated out of our jobs, which essentially made us unemployable. When we fell behind on the mortgage, Chase Mortgage (a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase Bank) put us on a forbearance program. Shortly after I was released, however, we learned that our house was going into foreclosure, even though I'm not sure we ever were notified that the forbearance was ending or what options we had to resolve the mortgage issue. (It's difficult to keep up with these matters when you are in jail, and your wife is spending every waking moment trying to get you out.) In short,  we suspect Chase Mortgage and associated entities engaged in a wrongful foreclosure, under Alabama law, and they apparently sent proceeds left over from the foreclosure, to Liberty Duke -- even though they lawfully belonged to Carol and me.

Bottom line: We were unable to stop what seemed like a speeded up foreclosure on our home -- one that featured some extremely dark motives from various individuals and entities. We wound up having to flee to Missouri, where I grew up. Through various lawsuits, where we were forced to represent ourselves (never a good or enjoyable circumstance) we have not received one penny for damages we incurred. We have had the pleasure of learning that law-enforcement and federal courts in Missouri are just as corrupt as similar entities in Alabama. For example, sheriff deputies conducted a wrongful eviction against us -- even though our rent had been timely paid and was not late by the 30 days required for an eviction under Missouri law -- and they wound up assaulting Carol, causing a comminuted fracture of her left elbow, requiring eight hours of trauma surgery and $80,000 worth of reconstruction and therapy to repair.

All of this is my way of saying that Carol and I are "children of the South," and because of that, we were overjoyed to learn yesterday that Scott Colom, a black Democrat, had defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. A solid overview of the race and what it means for our country's most consistently conservative region comes from Ben Meiselas, Brett Meiselas, and the Meidas Touch News (MTN):

Lawyer, prosecutor, and now Senator-elect Scott Colom has defeated MAGA Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. CNN has also projected the race for Colom, and with this win,  Democrats now hold 55 Senate seats.

Here’s how we got there. Three more vote drops just came in, totaling 2,394 votes, and Colom won 74.4% of them. The ballots still outstanding look just like those, so his statewide lead, now 4,585 votes, is only going to grow. A recount isn’t going to change a margin that keeps getting bigger. We can safely call it: Scott Colom will be the next U.S. Senator from Mississippi.

This was a nail-biter. On election night, the two candidates were separated by a few dozen votes. Then the counting continued, Colom pulled ahead, and his lead kept growing. 

A historic night

Yes, this is a huge upset, but it’s also a MAJOR moment in American history.

Scott Colom will be the first Black senator to represent Mississippi since Reconstruction. Mississippi’s legislature sent Hiram Revels to the Senate in 1870 and Blanche Bruce in 1875. That’s the last time it happened, roughly 145 years ago. And since Revels and Bruce were chosen by the legislature, Colom will be the first Black senator Mississippi voters ever elected themselves.

He did it in a state everyone said was impossible for a Democrat, by bringing together Mississippians of every background. 

Karma.

I call this poetic justice.

President Biden nominated Scott Colom to be a federal judge in 2022. Colom had bipartisan support. He was a respected district attorney and a beloved figure in Mississippi. Then Cindy Hyde-Smith, as Mississippi’s senator, used her power to block his nomination.

So Scott Colom ran against her. And now he’s taking her seat.

“Pick another senator instead”

I think Colom ran one of the best ads of the whole cycle. When beef prices were soaring, Hyde-Smith shrugged it off and told people, basically, there are so many proteins to choose from, pick another protein. 

Colom’s campaign put her words in front of Mississippians, and they answered: I’d rather pick another senator instead.

He started calling her “Cindy High Prices,” and it stuck, because it was true. 

He went to the Trump rally line to listen

When Trump came to Mississippi before the election, which was itself a sign the race was moving toward Colom, Colom went out and walked the line of people waiting to get in. He wasn’t there to argue. He was there to listen.

In his words, he talked with voters, asked questions and heard what mattered to them, and promised that as senator he’d represent all 82 counties and every Mississippian, no matter who they voted for. 

What did people in that line tell him? Gas prices. Grocery prices. They wanted out of the war in Iran. They weren’t fans of the tariffs. They worried about data centers driving up their electric bills, about Flock surveillance cameras and privacy, and about whose interests Washington was really looking out for. One veteran told him the Second Amendment mattered most. Another voter said what they wanted was honesty. 

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity very early on” I first interviewed Scott Colom on September 23, 2025. I titled the video “Trump gets a rude awakening from voters in Mississippi.” A lot of you told me I was being hyperbolic, that a Democrat could never win in Mississippi. Well, here we are.

He knew all along In that first interview in September 2025, Colom was already sure Mississippi was in play. He reminded me the last Democrat to run for governor lost to the Republican incumbent by only about 27,000 votes. Mississippi is competitive, he said, whenever Democrats have the resources to get their message out. He laid out his first two priorities. First, raise the minimum wage. Mississippi has no state minimum wage, so it’s the federal $7.25 that nobody can live on, and raising the floor lifts everyone’s wages. Second, repeal the health care cuts and save Mississippi’s hospitals. He also said Republicans were already spending money against him because they knew the state was competitive. He was right about that too.

Fifty-five, and soon fifty-six With Colom’s win, Democrats now hold 55 Senate seats. We expect Alaska to be called for Mary Peltola soon. That would be 56 seats, which is about the most anyone thought was possible this cycle. Congratulations, Senator-elect Scott Colom. Well done