Cindy Hyde-Smith Controversy Lies Mississippi

Cindy Hyde-Smith's Fake Campaign Site Now Opens With a Mugshot of Her Opponent at 18. He Says He Was Out Past Curfew.

Two weeks before Election Day, ColomForSenate.com — the Hyde-Smith campaign site built to look like Scott Colom's — pops up an uncaptioned mugshot from a 2001 misdemeanor arrest when he was a high school senior. Asked about it, her campaign manager repeated a 'sex change surgeries' claim the site's own source doesn't support.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 21, 2026

Cindy Hyde-Smith's Fake Campaign Site Now Opens With a Mugshot of Her Opponent at 18. He Says He Was Out Past Curfew.

Cindy Hyde-Smith's campaign runs a website called ColomForSenate.com. It isn't Scott Colom's site — his is ScottColom.com. Hers is built to look like his so it can attack him.

Two weeks before Election Day, anyone who visits it now gets a pop-up: what appears to be a pixelated mugshot of a teenage Scott Colom, the Democratic district attorney running against her for Senate. There's no caption on it and no written explanation alongside it, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reported on October 20.

What the arrest was

A side-view version of the photo, along with what appears to be a March 2001 arrest report, was published on October 16 by the Magnolia Tribune, which attributed it to "sources with state law enforcement and the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office." The report misspells his name as "Colon."

According to that document, Colom was an 18-year-old student at Columbus High School. He was arrested around 12:30 in the morning for contributing to the delinquency of a minor — a misdemeanor. The report doesn't say why he was arrested or what happened afterward.

Colom's explanation, in an October 19 statement:

"When I was a high school senior, one of my friends and I stayed out past curfew. That's it."

Columbus, like other Mississippi cities, has at times had a curfew for minors.

The Clarion Ledger could not independently confirm that the mugshot or the arrest report is authentic. Its request to the sheriff's office for the records hadn't been filled by publication. Colom's campaign says it can't verify either one. A Hyde-Smith campaign spokesperson didn't respond to the paper's questions in time for publication.

What her campaign said instead

Her campaign manager, Jake Monssen, did send a statement. It didn't explain the photo. It opened by accusing Colom of "standing behind false claims about AI to hide an arrest record," then went on:

"However, what is really criminal is not Scott Colom's mugshot, it's his failed record as a Soros-funded prosecutor who allowed violent crime to double under his watch as District Attorney. And more than that, it's his advocacy for life-altering, irreversible sex change surgeries for children."

We've checked that last claim before. When the campaign launched this same website in September, its "sex change surgeries" charge rested on one document: a 2021 letter Colom signed with other prosecutors. It was the only thing the site linked. The word "surgery" does not appear in it once. The letter asks prosecutors not to criminally charge doctors and parents over gender-affirming care. A month later, her campaign manager is still repeating the claim.

Monssen's statement offers no source for the "violent crime to double" line. Neither did the site: when it launched, its attack on Colom's record as district attorney cited no cases at all.

He's been checked by people with far more access

A Colom spokesperson pointed out that he was vetted by several law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department, when President Biden nominated him to be a federal judge in north Mississippi.

That nomination had support from Republicans, including Mississippi's other senator, Roger Wicker. It didn't fail on his record. It stalled because Hyde-Smith refused to return her "blue slip", a procedure that lets one home-state senator stop a nominee alone.

A campaign of insinuation

This is the third time this fall that her campaign has gone after Colom without backing it up.

In September, her campaign launched the look-alike website, with a headline charge its own source doesn't support.
In audio from an August 31 campaign stop, published in September, she was recorded suggesting her opponent's supporters could "get caught up in" a 2023 shooting near her home — a shooting that happened almost two years before Colom entered the race. Her campaign wouldn't say what she meant.
Now, a 25-year-old mugshot from a misdemeanor arrest when he was a high school senior, posted with no caption and no context.

Hyde-Smith hasn't debated an opponent since 2018. Polls now show Colom within the margin of error behind her.

What the record shows

Cindy Hyde-Smith's campaign added an uncaptioned mugshot of Scott Colom to ColomForSenate.com, a website it built to resemble his. The photo appears to come from a 2001 misdemeanor arrest when he was an 18-year-old high school senior, which Colom says was for staying out past curfew. Neither the Clarion Ledger nor Colom's campaign could verify that it is authentic. Asked about it, her campaign didn't explain the photo. Instead, it repeated the claim that Colom backs "sex change surgeries for children," which rests on a letter that never mentions surgery.