Former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison hosted Colom for a wide-ranging conversation on his Mississippi-first campaign, the prosecutor’s case against Cindy Hyde-Smith, and what it takes for Democrats to compete and win in rural states – WATCH HERE

Colom also recently joined former Senator Heidi Heitkamp on One Country Project’s “The Hot Dish” and reporters Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance on Mississippi Today’s flagship political podcast, “The Other Side“

District Attorney Colom on “At Our Table”: “We’re going to show the country we’ve got something special down here”

Columbus, MS — In case you missed it, District Attorney Scott Colom recently laid out the case for how Democrats can compete and win in rural and historically red-leaning states like Mississippi during a wide-ranging appearance on former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison’s “At Our Table” podcast. The conversation unpacked the math behind Mississippi’s 2026 Senate race – and why the momentum behind Colom’s campaign is real – as well as the prosecutor’s case against incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, and the kitchen-table issues Colom says will decide the race.

The Harrison interview is part of a run of recent high-profile sit-downs that also includes former Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s “The Hot Dish” podcast, the One Country Project’s flagship show on rural America, and Mississippi Today reporters Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance on one of the state’s most influential political podcasts, “The Other Side.” Across all three conversations, Colom uplifted the same Mississippi-first case that’s resonating with voters across the state: that this race is more competitive than Washington assumes, that Hyde-Smith has stopped showing up for the state she’s supposed to represent, and that the path to winning runs through a coalition of hardworking Mississippians—from farmers being squeezed by chaotic tariffs, to families facing rural hospital closures, to the rural and crossover voters who have been ignored for too long.

The run of interviews builds on a Democratic primary that nearly doubled turnout from 2018, jumping from roughly 87,000 to 146,000 ballots while Republican turnout stayed essentially flat. It also follows recent national coverage from The New York Times, MS NOW, The Bulwark, and historian Heather Cox Richardson’s “American Conversations” series, alongside continued attention from journalists, podcasters, and political observers across the country who are increasingly treating Mississippi as a race to watch.

“She hasn’t done a town hall in six years. Six years. She has not done a town hall,” District Attorney Colom told Harrison. “She knows that whatever county she goes to, somebody’s going to show up and ask her, ‘Ma’am, what have you done for me?’ And she knows she can’t answer that. I’m going to prosecute her. I’ve tried 35 jury trials. I’ve only lost one […] I know how to prosecute a case. And with her, boy, I’ve got a heck of a case to prosecute, because she’s got nothing she can run on. I’ll put my record against her record any day of the week. I’ll put my vision for the state against her vision any day of the week.”

The conversations also returned, again and again, to a healthcare crisis bearing down on rural Mississippi. On “The Other Side,” Colom walked Pender and Vance through the situation at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, where roughly 400 employees face the possibility of permanent closure on June 15 and a community of Delta residents would be left with the nearest hospital roughly 30 miles away. He traced the proximate crisis to a failure to expand Medicaid, while warning that Hyde-Smith’s vote for Washington’s billionaire tax break will compound the damage as its Medicaid provisions begin to bite next year. On “The Hot Dish,” Colom told the Heitkamps about a Greenwood barber whose business sits in the shadow of the hospital and who, in Scott’s telling, was “a powerful messenger” for the negative consequences the closure would bring for the local community. On “At Our Table,” Scott also laid out Mississippi’s tradition of senators, from Trent Lott to Roger Wicker, who showed up and delivered for the state — and highlighted what it means for Hyde-Smith to have done neither.

See select highlights of Scott from all three conversations below:

“At Our Table” with Jaime Harrison | May 12, 2026

• In Mississippi, we have a tradition. Maybe you don’t agree with Thad Cochran on a bunch of issues. Maybe you don’t agree with Trent Lott on issues, but you understood they were not only showing up, they were delivering for the state. They were bringing resources, money, jobs. [Cindy Hyde-Smith] doesn’t deliver anything for the voters.
• They’re about to learn that there are a lot of rural Democrats, rural independent-leaning Democrats, who we’ve been ignoring and have written off. Building a movement has excited them, and that’s why they showed out for the campaign and the primary turnout increased.
• When people tell me it’s a deep red state, I say, look at the independent poll. It shows me within three points of winning. When voters get to know my values and why I’m running, I’m actually up one point. That’s because we’re running on the kitchen-table issues voters care about.

→ Watch the full conversation HERE.

“The Hot Dish” with Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and Joel Heitkamp | May 13, 2026

• I was in the Delta. I was in Leflore County talking to a fourth-generation farmer… He was telling me they are in a state of emergency. They already were bad off because of the tariffs. The tariffs had taken away a reliable customer that’s not coming back. And while we lost that customer, they went and started buying soybeans from Argentina, and we bailed out Argentina. Which makes no sense.
• While our state is headed in the wrong direction because of these tariffs, because of the healthcare cuts, because of damage to our economy, [Cindy Hyde-Smith]’s in Las Vegas worried about herself.
• Too many of our politicians are trying to be celebrities. We’ve got to go back to centering the voters, making sure they understand we want to make their life better. We want to be public servants.

→ Watch the full conversation HERE.

Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” with Geoff Pender & Taylor Vance | May 5, 2026

• It cut taxes permanently for people making over $600,000 a year. We all know we don’t have that many people in Mississippi who make $600,000 a year. Those people are millionaires and billionaires… But you cut their taxes, and to pay for the tax cut, you cut healthcare for 140,000 Mississippians.
• Greenwood Leflore is in really, really bad shape. It’s going to have 400 people lose their jobs. Healthcare in Greenwood is going to be at least 30 miles away. You’re going to have a community without a hospital. Just think about what that does to the future of the Delta.
• When I talk to voters, after listening to their problems, I say, ‘I’m going to cancel those healthcare cuts and I’m going to save our hospitals,’ and I get a big applause. When I talk to doctors, they tell me, ‘We have to do that, Scott. We have to do that, because otherwise we’re going to be in a state of emergency. We’re already teetering.’

→ Watch the full conversation HERE.

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