COLUMBUS, Miss. — A Deep South state that hasn’t gone blue for president since Jimmy Carter might seem like an odd place for Kamala Harris to headline one of her first rallies ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run. But Thursday night, she played to a packed crowd in this city near the Alabama line.
“Mississippi matters!” Harris shouted to thunderous cheers as she spoke in the Columbus High School gymnasium for Democratic Senate nominee Scott Colom, the local prosecutor. More than 1,000 people waited in line to get through metal detectors before the evening event, and once inside they cheered and danced like a pep rally.
Harris’s presence highlighted not only her own ambition, but also the newfound attention from Democrats on Colom, who is striving to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi in some four decades. He would also become the first Black politician elected statewide in Mississippi since Reconstruction.
His race against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is heating up and drawing cash and high-profile visits. Another Democrat hinting at presidential aspirations, Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, stumped with Colom last week. President Donald Trump plans to campaign with Hyde-Smith next week.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report signaled that Democrats have a shot in Mississippi, changing its rating of the U.S. Senate race from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican.”
The Senate Majority PAC, the campaign operation for Senate Democrats, this week announced a $1.2 million ad buy to help Colom. Not to be outdone, the Senate Leadership Fund, Senate Republicans’ top super PAC, will spend more than $1 million on a new ad campaign to boost Hyde-Smith, according to a person with knowledge of the group’s spending, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Harris hit the stage Thursday night like a pop star, the crowd reaching jet-engine levels of noise. She praised Colom as a beloved and trusted member of the community and said he cared more about Mississippi than Hyde-Smith, whom Democrats have relentlessly attacked for saying in an interview that if beef prices were high, Mississippians could pick another protein.
Tying Hyde-Smith to Trump (but not naming him), Harris switched gears and began to sound more like a candidate.
“We are witnessing the most callous, corrupt and incompetent presidential administration in American history,” the former vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee said to a roar from the crowd.
“We’ve spent the last year and a half looking at the TV, saying words we don’t say in church, sometimes throwing things,” Harris continued. When she paused, a voice in the crowd shouted, “You told us so!”
“Yes, brother, I did,” Harris responded with a smile.
Harris is turning up the heat on rallies after a few select appearances at controlled campaign events, such as a roundtable discussion last month with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
After a quiet summer, the ramp-up is striking: Harris attended an organized labor event with Nevada gubernatorial hopeful Aaron Ford on Wednesday and has events coming up in New Hampshire and Georgia.
She has teased another presidential run in 2028. “I’m thinking about it,” Harris said in April in a chat with the Rev. Al Sharpton at the civil rights leader’s National Action Network Convention in New York. That crowd — primarily African Americans — cheered for Harris with more enthusiasm than for any of the other Democratic presidential aspirants who paraded through the multiday event.
On Thursday, Harris emphasized Colom’s chance to make history at a time when the Supreme Court has rolled back voting protections for minorities.
“This is that moment where the power of the people speaks,” Harris said. “We have to be a check and balance on what’s happening.”
Some Democrats view Harris as tarnished by her loss in 2024 and her failure to distance herself from President Joe Biden, whose policies on the economy and immigration were rejected by voters. But her historic status as the first Black woman and first South Asian to serve as vice president makes her a formidable figure among some Democrats, particularly Black women, who are among the most committed of all Democratic voters.
“I definitely favor her running,” Katina Pickens, 52, who is Black and a high school administrator, said Thursday night as she waited for Harris to speak. Pickens said she voted for the former vice president in 2024 and expects to do so again in 2028.
“She’s going to be successful despite the naysayers and the doubt,” Pickens said, echoing the sentiment of a half-dozen other women interviewed at the rally. “She’s a great leader.”
Candidates in high-stakes midterm contests this year have been finicky about Harris. While some Democrats have touted her endorsement and enlisted her for fundraising, some have shunned her, particularly in red-leaning states. In Iowa, Senate nominee Josh Turek and gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand rejected the idea of appearing with Harris.
Hyde-Smith criticized Colom for campaigning with her.
“He is completely beholden to the far left and the failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration, which led to record-high inflation and a border crisis that allowed millions of illegal aliens, criminals, and gang members to flood into our country,” Hyde-Smith posted on X.
Natalie Allison contributed to this report.
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