比尔·巴罗、索菲·贝茨 杰克逊，密西西比州 — 民主党人斯科特·科洛姆尚未赢得密西西比州的美国参议员选举，但这位地方检察官周五在法里什街商业区漫步时，受到了作为历史性人物的欢迎，民权领袖曾在此组织活动。
BILL BARROW, SOPHIE BATES JACKSON, Miss. — Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race , but the local prosecutor was welcomed as a historic figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district where civil rights leaders once organized.
“太棒了！拥有斯科特·科洛姆作为我们的代表太棒了，”杰克逊市马歇尔音乐书店店主马蒂·琼·普里姆说道。
“It’s so wonderful! It’s so wonderful to have Scott Colom as our representative,” said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in Jackson.
该州仍在统计选票，这可能使科洛姆成为内战后重建时期以来，这个深南部州份的首位黑人参议员。科洛姆击败共和党参议员辛迪·海德-史密斯的可能性，让许多黑人选民处于谨慎乐观与公开庆祝之间；在这个近40%人口为黑人、但几代人以来最高层代表一直由白人担任的州份。
The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first Black senator from this Deep South state since post-Civil War Reconstruction. The possibility of Colom defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith puts many Black voters somewhere between cautious optimism and outright celebration in a state where nearly 40% of the population is Black but the top representation for generations has been white.
“我很高兴我们走到了这一步，”76岁的律师索里·塔拉瓦利说道，他早已认识科洛姆的父亲。他称这位43岁的候选人为“这个人，我们的弥赛亚，我们的救世主”。美联社尚未宣布选举结果，科洛姆的历史性竞选将取决于密西西比州82个县选举办公室正在进行的一项繁琐过程。地方官员正在接收和审查缺席选票和临时选票（称为宣誓选票），截止日期在下周。代表各竞选团队的志愿者和律师在旁注视，预期可能出现诉讼。
“I’m so glad we are at the point where we are,” said Sorie Tarawally, a 76-year-old attorney who has long known Colom’s father. He called the 43-year-old candidate “the man, our messiah, our savior.”The contest remains too early for The Associated Press to call, and Colom’s historic bid will hinge on a tedious process playing out in elections offices across Mississippi’s 82 counties. Local officials are receiving and examining absentee and provisional ballots, called affidavit ballots, before deadlines next week. Volunteers and lawyers representing each campaign look on in anticipation of potential litigation.
“我们将确保一切依法进行，我对这些地方官员有信心，”科洛姆说。“他们在履行职责。必须对他们保持耐心。”科洛姆表示，自周二大选以来统计的选票对他有利，并批评海德-史密斯未解释其后续策略。
“We’re going to make sure everything is followed according to the law, and I have confidence in those local officials,” Colom said. “They’re doing their jobs. Got to be patient with them.”Colom said ballots tallied since Tuesday’s election lean in his favor, and he chided Hyde-Smith for not explaining her strategy going forward.
“她仍然是我们的参议员。她在哪里？为什么不接受任何采访？”科隆问道。“为什么她不能解释她的胜选之路在哪里？”自选举之夜以来，海德-史密斯未曾公开露面，当时尽管票差极其微小且选票仍在统计中，她基本上已宣布获胜。
“She’s still our senator. Where is she? Why is she not doing any interviews?”Colom asked. “Why can’t she explain what her pathway to success is?”Hyde-Smith has not appeared publicly since election night, when she essentially declared victory despite a razor-thin margin with ballots still uncounted.
“我们不会退缩，”她周五在社交媒体上发文称。“选举尚未结束。我们的团队正在密西西比州各地监控剩余选票，维护流程的公正性。我们将坚持到底！”剩余选票池包括缺席选票，在密西西比州，只要在周二之前收到——即选举日后第五个工作日——即可计数。其余的是宣誓选票，当投票站出现故障时投出：可能选民姓名不在名册上，或选民没有携带合适证件，或投票站工作人员认定选民证件与名册上的姓名不完全一致。
“We are not backing down,” she posted Friday on social media. “This election is not over. Our team is working across Mississippi to monitor the remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through to the very end!”The pool of outstanding ballots includes absentee ballots, which can be counted in Mississippi as long as they are received by Tuesday, five business days after the election. The rest are affidavit ballots, which are cast at the polls when there’s a glitch: Perhaps the person’s name was not on the rolls or the person did not have proper identification, or a poll worker determined the person’s identification did not precisely match the name on the list.
有证件问题的公民可在周二前亲自前往当地选举办公室解决这些问题。对于名册上没有姓名的人，当地官员可利用过往记录和该人填写选票时提交的宣誓书上的信息核实其身份。该人通常无需前往当地选举办公室；选票状态可在密西西比州州务卿办公室网站上查询。各县须于周五前向州务卿认证完整结果。
Citizens who had identification issues have until Tuesday to address those matters in person at their local elections office. For people who were not on a precinct’s rolls, local officials can verify a person’s status using previous records and information on the affidavit that person filed when filling out a ballot. That person typically has no responsibility to come to a local elections office; ballot status can be found on the Mississippi secretary of state’s office website. Counties have until Friday to certify complete results to the secretary of state.
密西西比州法律没有全州重新计票的规定。竞选团队可寻求法院命令，通常逐县申请，要求检查选票。
Mississippi law has no provision for a statewide recount. Campaigns could seek court orders, usually county by county, seeking to examine ballots.
民主党已赢得参议院控制权，因此密西西比州的结果不会改变华盛顿的权力平衡。
Democrats already have won control of the Senate , so the result in Mississippi would not change the balance of power in Washington.
但这将标志着该州发生了一次剧变，近150年来，白人保守派一直主导着州议会和国会代表团。从吉姆·克劳种族隔离时期到民权时代，这些领导人几乎全是民主党人。民权运动后，他们绝大多数转投共和党。对密西西比州黑人而言，结果是一样的：在州政府最高层和华盛顿缺乏相称的代表性。
But it would mark a seismic shift in the state, where white conservatives have dominated the Statehouse and congressional delegation for nearly 150 years. Through Jim Crow segregation and the Civil Rights era, those leaders were nearly all Democrats. After the Civil Rights Movement, they overwhelmingly shifted to Republicans. For Black Mississippians, the result was the same: a lack of proportional representation at the top levels of state government and in Washington.
科隆最初被视为胜算渺茫，直到10月下旬，参议院民主党人的主要竞选机构才开始投放广告支持他。但中期选举揭示出南方选区重划引发的广泛反弹，那些重划旨在助推共和党，进而减少黑人代表性。
Colom was initially viewed as a long shot, and it wasn’t until late October that Senate Democrats’ top campaign group started spending on advertising to support him. But the midterms revealed a broad backlash against redistricting efforts in the South that were aimed at boosting Republicans and, by extension, reducing Black representation.
普里姆书店于1930年代开业，被公认为全美历史最悠久的黑人经营书店，科隆周五曾到访此地。
Primm’s bookstore, where Colom visited on Friday, opened in the 1930s and is recognized as the oldest Black-owned bookstore in the U.S.
她说，法里什街街区至今仍代表着密西西比州黑人的“首次迁徙，从种植园到城市”。科隆作为潜在参议员出现在这里，“让我们倍感自豪，也给了我们一个榜样。我们的青年需要看到他们生活的可能性，当我们看到密西西比州的下一位参议员时，我们就看到了。”竞选期间，科隆强调他能代表所有密西西比州人，并表示唐纳德·特朗普总统的政策——尤其是与伊朗的对抗和关税——超越了所有人口界限。
She said the Farish Street neighborhood still represents Black Mississippians’ “first migration, from the plantation to the city.”Having Colom there as a potential senator “makes us so proud, and it gives us someone to aspire to. Our youth need to see the possibilities for their lives, and we do when we see our next senator from Mississippi.”As he campaigned, Colom emphasized that he can represent all Mississippians, and he said President Donald Trump’s policies — the war with Iran and tariffs, especially — cut across all demographic lines.
他甚至为延长的计票过程喝彩，称这惠及该州295万居民。“很高兴全国媒体能看到我们州的美好，”他说。但科隆和他的黑人支持者从未忽视他作为黑人候选人的重要意义。
He even celebrated the extended ballot counting process as a benefit to the state’s 2.95 million residents. “I’m so glad the national press is getting to see the beauty of our state,” he said. But Colom and his Black supporters also have never ignored the significance of his candidacy as a Black man.
“我们之所以参选，是因为我们看到社会中存在严重的不平等，而且似乎只有一方受益，”塔拉瓦利说。他出生于塞拉利昂，来到美国深南部，在密西西比大学攻读法学院学位。“所以，我们想要一位为我们利益发声的人。”科隆在杰克逊市梅德加·埃弗斯的故居前拍摄广告，以此结束了他的竞选活动。埃弗斯是一位民权领袖，1963年在自家车道上被枪杀，死在妻子和孩子面前。
“We are motivated by the gross inequalities we have seen in society and how only one side seems to benefit,” said Tarawally, who was born in Sierra Leone and arrived in the Deep South to attend law school at the University of Mississippi. “So, we want a person who speaks to our benefit.”Colom ended his campaign with an ad set at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was gunned down in 1963 in his own driveway, dying in front of his wife and children.
“这是一个强有力的提醒，提醒人们为争取选票付出了牺牲，没有人比梅德加·埃弗斯和他的家人牺牲得更多，”科隆周五表示。
“It’s a powerful reminder of the sacrifice to gain the ballot, and nobody sacrificed more than Medgar Evers and his family,” Colom said Friday.
“这个广告对我而言重要的是，我们没有请求人们投票给我。我们只是谈论牺牲，讲述故事，”他接着说。“我们只想让这成为结尾广告，因为我希望这成为密西西比州人民听到的最后一条信息。”
“What was important to me about that ad is we didn’t ask people to vote for me. We just talked about the sacrifice, talked about the story,” he continued. “We just wanted that to be the closing ad because I wanted that to be the last message that the people of Mississippi heard.”