Decades after the Voting Rights Act muzzled Jim Crow-era restrictions in the South — but months before the Supreme Court ripped away some of the law’s protections — community organizers in Mississippi held meeting after meeting last winter trying to help residents understand the evolving twists of redistricting.
The state with the country’s highest proportion of Black residents is still haunted by decades of now-defunct laws aimed at thwarting minority votes. Crowds of voters gathered occasionally at town halls and churches worried about being disenfranchised like their parents and grandparents before them.
What the high court could rule — and ultimately would, in April — mattered deeply.
“The lawyers were giving all of these scenarios about what the decision could mean for Mississippi, and one older gentleman raised his hand and said, ‘You know, I just want to know if I can vote in November,’” recalled Nsombi Lambright, executive director of OneVoice, a non-partisan civic engagement organization. “It was just that simple to him.”
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Democrat Scott Colom’s victory over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith makes him the state’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction era. The win may have been shocking to those prognosticators outside the Deep South — Colom himself took one political forecaster to task for discounting his bid — but community advocates, particularly Black organizers, say they saw the purpling of a ruby-red state like Mississippi coming.
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The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v Callais, a landmark ruling that made it harder to challenge maps that dilute minority voting power, and the subsequent legislative whiplash from wrangling over congressional district maps also energized a base that didn’t want to be silenced.
“Redistricting impacts your representation, and so that means your sense of place, your sense of who you are, your sense of belonging and your sense of making sure that you can make things happen where you are,” Lambright said.
While it’s clear that a range of factors, including the cost of living and the Iran war, led to Democrats’ retaking both chambers of Congress, governors’ seats and legislatures, state organizers like Lambright are confident that Black voters in the Deep South felt a “sense of urgency around participating” spurred by mid-decade redistricting.
Preliminary data from Call the Map indicates that all 82 Mississippi counties shifted toward Democrats this cycle. This mirrors a national trend among Black voters, with young Black men shifting around 25 points back to the party after President Donald Trump held a larger percentage of their votes in 2024, according to The New York Times.
These gains came as Democratic politicians across the Deep South increasingly voiced frustrations about the lack of national investment this cycle, peeved at party leaders appearing to write off their potential to flip red state seats and tap into the region’s growing Black population. Earlier this week, Colom aired his grievances against a national forecasting group’s prediction of a Republican win in his race, a call he said hurt his ability to fundraise. It’s “part of the reason the South has been neglected for so long,” Colom wrote Monday on X.
Colom’s victory proved to the country that Mississippi can be competitive, organizers say. But Mississippi Votes’ Executive Director Arekia Bennett-Scott and Field Director Jada Barnes knew well before Nov. 3 that the contest had the potential to be a nailbiter.
“Moments like this don’t happen overnight,” Bennett-Scott said. “It is a protracted struggle, if you will, and we have been fighting for a moment like this for a long time.”
Mississippi Votes, also a non-partisan group, focuses on mobilizing young voters across the political spectrum, and Barnes believes that redistricting was one of the “biggest drivers” for young Mississippians.
“Making sure that people had the education on who’s asking for this, why they’re asking for it, why does this have to happen really drove young people to want to take action,” Barnes said.
After working to inform communities about the effects of redistricting — a push that included tours from college campuses to the state’s most rural areas — Mississippi Votes organizers plan to target the state’s wider slate of prohibitive election guidelines during January’s state legislative session. Mississippi currently does not have several election procedures often found in other states, such as early voting or online voter registration.
Angela Grayson, the civic engagement and voting rights director for the non-partisan Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, said there has been a “a relentless, never-ending process of electoral organizing, educating and then mobilizing voters” in the works for decades, but she observed an “unprecedented number of folks” coming out to share their concerns this cycle.
“The writing is on the wall,” Grayson said. “We know that there’s an attack on our right to vote, and so people came out to protect their right to vote.”
Mississippi isn’t the only Deep South state to have a close Senate election this cycle: Louisiana Democrat Jamie Davis came less than 2 percentage points from beating Republican Julia Letlow last week.
Louisiana’s leaders saw similar voting rights concerns drive people to the polls after the Supreme Court’s ruling allowed the state to redraw Rep. Cleo Fields’ district, effectively pushing out one of the state’s two Black federal lawmakers.
Democratic State Rep. Rodney Lyons — chair of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus and vice chair of the state legislative committee that had primary jurisdiction over the redistricting process — said he knew the Republican-led efforts would prevail. But he told The Washington Sun that Louisianans, particularly younger voters, were ready to “fight for something that other people before [them] fought for,” referencing the lasting impact of Jim Crow-era voter suppression laws in the South.
“We knew we didn’t have the numbers to stop anything, but the people decided we’re going to fight this thing out,” Lyons said. “That was really inspiring and the biggest part of us getting into the districts, getting into the state and going around educating people in town halls.”
While national party investment and attention hit Mississippi this cycle — even if it was more concentrated during the post-election tally — Lyons said he didn’t see the same support in Louisiana from Democrats.
“Should they have been involved in Louisiana’s election? Absolutely, they should have,” Lyons said. “And shame on them for not being a part of it because that would have been another state that we could have flipped.”
Lyons ultimately hopes that the close elections in both Mississippi and Louisiana will be a rallying cry for more resources and attention to keep the momentum going in the Deep South.
“The nation can see now that we can compete, and more importantly, we have to embrace that and continue to be competitive,” Lyons said.
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