Overview
In 30 seconds
4,669 votes ahead when the AP called the race on 11 November, in the unofficial count: Colom beat Hyde-Smith in a state Trump won by 23 points.
A prosecutor since 2016 and little known statewide, he filmed short vertical video series: barbershops, fairs, gas stations and the day's news.
He turned the senator's answer on beef prices, “so many proteins to choose from”, into an ad that became a campaign format.
He outspent his opponent on ads ($4.6M to $3.2M through 20 October, per AdImpact), and Black organizers got voters to the polls.
Risks: an AI video without a label was taken down at the attorney general's request, and the sources don't say whether the proxy account that attacked Hyde-Smith from the right declared any campaign tie.
First steps
- Pick a creator who directs and edits the same day
- Put together the vertical filming kit
- Archive the opponent's interviews and remarks, with date and source
If you're new to this, start with the fundamentals, from the vote goal to what the research says. Read the fundamentals
Context and story
The story
In March 2026, Scott Colom was a district attorney from northeast Mississippi, little known in the rest of the state, up against a…
In March 2026, Scott Colom was a district attorney from northeast Mississippi, little known in the rest of the state, up against a Trump-backed senator. The race was seen as lost. Colom filmed vertical videos every day, made Hyde-Smith's words and absence his material, and on 3 November the count came out virtually tied. The AP called the race for him on 11 November, and Hyde-Smith conceded.
- 4,669
- vote lead when the AP called the race on 11 Nov 2026 (473,336 to 468,667), in the unofficial count reported by WLOXofficial Source
- 23 points
- Trump's margin over Kamala Harris in Mississippi in 2024official Source
- $4.6M
- in Colom ads through 20 Oct, against Hyde-Smith's $3.2M (AdImpact, via AP)estimate Source
- +40%
- statewide turnout on pace to be about 40% above 2022, as of 4 Nov (Common Dreams)estimate Source
From a Columbus courtroom to the Senate
- 2016Colom takes office as district attorney for the 16th Judicial District, in the northeast of the state, after serving as Columbus city prosecutor (2013–2016).
- 2022–2025Biden nominates him to a federal judgeship in northern Mississippi; Hyde-Smith withholds the home-state senator's sign-off and the nomination stalls, even though the other Republican senator, Roger Wicker, moved it forward.
- Feb 2026Asked on TV about beef prices, Hyde-Smith answers: “You know, you have so many proteins to choose from.”
- 10 Mar 2026Colom wins the Democratic primary with 72.9%. Hyde-Smith wins the Republican one with about 81%.
- Jun 2026Colom had raised $2.8 million; Hyde-Smith, $3.8 million. Since the start of 2025 he had raised more from individual donors ($1.9 million to $1.8 million).
- Sep 2026The campaign asks “Where's Cindy?”. On 29 September, Colom challenges Hyde-Smith to three debates and accepts WLBT's invitation; her campaign replies that losing candidates always want a debate about debates.
- 1–23 Oct 2026Colom posts an AI video showing Hyde-Smith running from reporters in the Capitol, with no AI label. After a complaint from the state Republican Party, the attorney general asks for its removal on 23 October and he deletes it.
- 21 Oct 2026Senate Majority PAC starts $1.2 million in TV and digital, the group's first move in the race. Warnock had campaigned with Colom the week before, and Kamala Harris has a rally scheduled.
- 31 Oct–4 Nov 2026On Halloween, according to Chaudhary, the campaign posts “Senators”, a parody of the horror film Sinners. On 1 November, Colom posts his closing ad at Medgar Evers' former home; according to Chaudhary, it came out of a 15-minute talk in a coffee shop, was written in the next 40 minutes and shot a day or two later. On the morning of 4 November, with 95.6% counted, Colom leads by 65 votes; Hyde-Smith had essentially declared victory on election night, according to the AP.
- 10–11 Nov 2026With affidavit and mail ballots counted, the lead reaches 2,575 votes at noon on 10 November. The AP calls the race for Colom on the 11th, with a 4,669-vote lead in the unofficial count, and Hyde-Smith concedes; counties certify by 13 November.
Three layers
The deck organizes the campaign as a pyramid, with paid media on the sides. Read through the sources, it has three layers.
- The candidate in vertical seriesColom filmed upright, on the street, every day: barbershops, gas stations, fairs, the Grove on game day, takes on the day's news. Repeated formats with their own names, such as “Mississippi Matters Monday”, one of the most successful series according to Chaudhary; others, such as “Throwback Thursdays”, were dropped.
- Formats and the universe of pagesHyde-Smith's words and absences became formats traced back to a root (“DNA”, in the deck): the beef, the debate challenge, the missing-person poster. The meme page Chaudhary says he ran, a proxy account and copycat pages multiplied the material.
- Campaigning, field and paid mediaCampaigning at the base of the pyramid: churches, campuses, mayors (“Send in the Mayors”, in the deck), Delta and NAACP organizers, affidavit ballots followed up after the election. Digital ads as accelerant and TV as air cover, according to the deck. Chaudhary ties this base to Congressman Bennie Thompson's door-to-door style.
What isn't known. Closed on 12 November 2026.
The AP called the race for Colom on the evening of 11 November and Hyde-Smith conceded; county certification is due on 13 November, and all vote figures here are unofficial and dated. Neither the webinar deck nor the recording is public; the slides are mostly video stills with short captions, and the recording was made after the election and before the AP call, on a date not known. The recording's subtitles are auto-generated, so only clearly transcribed lines are quoted; Chaudhary's claims are attributed and, where possible, checked against reporting. Chaudhary says he worked on the campaign; the public sources read do not detail his role. By his account, the deck's “$2,200,000” is what Democrats invested at the last minute in the “Cindy Hyde-Smith's” drive-thru ad; no other source read gives the figure or says which group paid. The AdImpact figures run through 20 October; Fortune puts Colom's fundraising at about $5 million against just over $3 million for Hyde-Smith. The 40% rise in turnout was a projection on 4 November, not a final figure. Chaudhary says he ran the Cindy Highprices page and that by the end of the campaign Colom collaborated on its Instagram posts; he does not say who ran the proxy account that attacked Hyde-Smith from the right, or whether it disclosed any link to the campaign. The Mississippi Today pages did not open; only their headlines were used.
The rest of the win
The videos were only one part.
The videos were only one part. This panel was written on 12 November 2026, a day after the AP call: post-mortems are only starting, and the main practitioner source so far is a webinar (deck and recording) by Arun Chaudhary, who says he worked on the campaign. It separates what is documented from what is interpretation, and will be revised as more accounts are published.
- Turnout above the usualOn 4 November, statewide turnout was on pace to be about 40% above 2022, and majority-Black Hinds County had 44% more votes for the two leading candidates than its 2022 total. The NAACP spoke of historic turnout. Common Dreams, 4 Nov 2026
- Delta organizersIn Holmes County, a local team registered 283 voters, drove residents to the polls and helped sort out ballot problems; late-counted votes put Colom ahead in the county by 28 votes. The National News Desk via KATV, 8 Nov 2026
- A backlash over voting rightsVoting rights advocates tied Black mobilization to the Louisiana v. Callais decision and to new district maps; Colom called the ruling a threat to democracy. How much it weighed was not measured. Common Dreams, 4 Nov 2026
- Outside money and allies, lateSenate Majority PAC came in with $1.2 million on 21 October; Warnock campaigned with Colom, Kamala Harris had a rally scheduled and Bill Clinton appeared at a rally. AP via WCAX, 20 Oct 2026
- The opponentHyde-Smith ran a low-profile campaign, did not debate and, according to the AP, essentially declared victory on election night with thousands of votes still uncounted. How much that weighed on the result is unknown. AP via KTAR, 7 Nov 2026
- Affidavit ballotsBy 10 November, 15,547 affidavit ballots had been processed and 76% accepted, and Colom's lead grew from 65 to 2,575 votes with them and with mail ballots. WLOX, 10 Nov 2026
- A low-budget campaignChaudhary describes one of the least-funded Senate campaigns, comparable, he says, to a regional race in Europe, and says the millions that came in at the end paid for ads that were not very effective. This is the view of someone who worked on the campaign; per AdImpact, Colom still spent more than Hyde-Smith on ads through 20 October.
- What is not knownThe certified result, the vote by race and age, how many people the campaign mobilized, which Democratic group paid for the $2.2 million ad and who ran the proxy account that attacked from the right. The playbook will be updated with the accounts of the people who ran the campaign.
The terrain
What was specific to Mississippi in 2026 and may be missing elsewhere.
What was specific to Mississippi in 2026 and may be missing elsewhere.
Platforms
- Vertical video (Reels, TikTok, Facebook)
- The heart of the deck: short videos shot upright, with the candidate on the street, in series that return to the same format. The campaign posted on Facebook and Instagram, where the 1 October AI video went up.
- Local TV
- It was in a TV interview in February that Hyde-Smith answered the beef-price question; the deck shows the WLOX clip. Colom accepted a WLBT debate invitation; the debate never happened.
- Meme pages and proxy accounts
- The deck describes an “Extended Proxy Universe”. In the recording, Chaudhary says the Instagram account cindy.high.prices (263 followers in the deck's screenshot) was “a meme page that I ran”, and that by the end, “unless it was something really crazy”, Colom would collaborate on all its Instagram posts, less so on TikTok and X; Instagram was where memes performed best. Copycat pages such as Colombstan and Mississlippy appeared that were not the campaign's, he says. He also shows a proxy account that attacked Hyde-Smith from the right, without saying who ran it or whether it declared any campaign tie.
- Attack sites
- A “Where's Cindy?” site with a missing-person poster appears in the deck; in September, Mississippi Today ran the headline that Colom was asking voters where Cindy was. On the other side, Hyde-Smith's campaign created a fake website using Colom's name, according to the Mississippi Free Press.
- Other people's channels
- The deck shows a video of Jackson State students with Colom, posted on a supporter's account with the caption “GET UP AND GET OUT TO VOTE !!”, under the title “Other People's Channels”. In the recording, Chaudhary shows Colom on election day filming a get-out-the-vote video on a supporter's phone and handing it back for her to post.
- Paid TV and digital
- About $8 million in total in the race through 20 October; Colom spent about $4.6 million to Hyde-Smith's $3.2 million, per AdImpact. Senate Majority PAC added $1.2 million from 21 October. For Chaudhary, TV works as defense (“air cover”) and paid digital gives the series traction; the millions that came in at the end, he says, paid for ads that were not very effective.
- Churches, campuses and rallies
- A voting rights discussion at Farish Street Baptist Church in Jackson, campus visits, the Grove at the University of Mississippi on game day, and a rally with Bill Clinton.
Local conditions
- Trump won Mississippi by about 23 points in 2024, and no Democrat had won a Senate race there since 1982. In mid-September 2026, Cook and Inside Elections still rated the race Solid Republican.
- About 37% of the population is Black, the highest share in the country, but Black voters usually make up about a third of the November electorate.
- The state has not expanded Medicaid; Colom spoke of about 400,000 people without health insurance, along with tariffs, grocery prices and rural hospitals.
- A low-profile senator who rarely spoke to reporters and, according to Colom, held no town halls. No source read records a debate between the two.
- A 2024 law (Mississippi Code § 97-13-47) requires a disclaimer when AI is used to depict someone in an election ad; Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch can ask a court to order removal.
- The national party arrived late: the main Democratic Senate group only began spending in late October, and Senator Raphael Warnock criticized the lack of investment in the South.
- There is no automatic recount. Affidavit ballots cast without photo ID require the voter to appear at the county clerk's office within a few days.
- Civil rights groups tied Black turnout to a backlash against the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision and against new district maps, according to Common Dreams.
- According to Chaudhary, Congressman Bennie Thompson, in office since the 1990s, practices door-to-door politics and has never run a campaign ad, only a radio jingle; that ethos, he says, sank into Colom and the campaign.
Method and evidence
The method
The deck sums up the bet as a pyramid: at the top, the organic videos that go viral; in the middle, vertical series; at the base,…
The deck sums up the bet as a pyramid: at the top, the organic videos that go viral; in the middle, vertical series; at the base, campaigning on the ground. Digital and TV ads come in from the sides, to speed things up and protect. What follows is the site's reading of the deck, the webinar recording and the press.
Three fronts
- Vertical volume in series
- To fix the name recognition problem, the deck calls for “Quality and Quantity” and “Waves and Waves of Content”: many short videos, shot upright, with the candidate, organized into series that come back every week. The deck's line: “The age of the viral video is over”, followed by “Long live the viral video”. In the recording, Chaudhary says the first problem was the name, mispronounced even on national TV, and that the campaign kept pushing it in videos. The message came down to four points, “higher wages, lower costs, save our healthcare, save our hospitals”, repeated until, he says, people could shout them at him from a passing car; he compares it to Zohran Mamdani's three.
- The opponent's words and absence
- The beef answer became the “pick another protein” ad and a format; the refusal of debates and town halls became “Where's Cindy?”. The deck calls this “Attack the Right from the Right”: a conservative voter's criticisms, such as calling Hyde-Smith a RINO (Republican in name only). The nickname “Cindy Highprices” replaced her name almost everywhere except TV ads, where it would have seemed rude, according to Chaudhary. Under “Where's Cindy?”, the campaign had mayors go looking for the senator, such as Charles Latham of Grenada (“Send in the Mayors”, in the deck).
- Campaign first, creative second
- “There is no creative without a campaign”: the videos came out of real events, visits and conversations. Mayors, family and staff became characters, other people's channels carried the message, and paid media came on top. In the recording, Chaudhary says the viral videos rest on hundreds of vertical videos, and those on campaigning in Congressman Bennie Thompson's door-to-door style.
The campaign cycle
The site's reading of the deck, the webinar recording and reporting, not a campaign manual.
- Campaign Go to barbershops, churches, campuses, fairs and games. No real event, no video, according to the deck.
- Shoot vertically, on the spot The candidate talks to the phone or with whoever he meets. The deck: “Short videos, shot vertically.”
- Take on the day's news “Vertical the news”: react on video to a story the same day, in a suit or a campaign T-shirt, before others fill the space.
- Turn it into a series “Serialize!”: what worked once comes back with a fixed name and day. The deck: “Something worth doing is worth doing again.” According to Chaudhary, you have to try five or six series to keep two or three; “Throwback Thursdays”, video chats over a beer, was dropped, and “Mississippi Matters Monday” stayed.
- Trace each format to its root The deck traces the “DNA” of each format to a root: a senator's line on TV, a conversation with a Trump voter, Medgar Evers' home.
- Pass it to other channels Videos reposted by supporters, students and meme pages; in the final get-out-the-vote push, the recording shows Colom filming a voting video on a supporter's phone for her to post. Chaudhary watches shares: a post with more shares than likes, he says, reaches people who don't want to be seen liking it. This is where the main risk sits: material with no declared origin.
- Accelerate and cover with paid media Digital ads push what already works; TV lends authority. The deck: “The Immediacy of Vertical”, “The Authority of Horizontal”. Chaudhary calls the pairing “runway and retail”: the polished piece and the smaller add-on.
- Get out the vote and count every ballot Final-stretch mobilization and, after the election, following affidavit and mail ballots county by county.
And again.
Who did it
Written on 12 November 2026, a day after the AP called the race.
Written on 12 November 2026, a day after the AP called the race. The backbone is an ECDA webinar in which Arun Chaudhary, who says he worked on the campaign, presented a 104-slide deck; it was recorded after the election and before the AP call. Neither the deck nor the recording is public; his claims are attributed and, where possible, checked against reporting.
Scott Colom
Candidate; district attorney for Mississippi's 16th Judicial District since 2016, based in Columbus, Lowndes County
Appears in almost every video in the deck, filmed by him or with him on the street; in 2022 Biden nominated him to a federal judgeship and Hyde-Smith blocked the nomination.
SourcesArun Chaudhary
Worked on the campaign, by his own account, and presented the case in the webinar; first official White House videographer (2009–2011) and creative director of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign
In the webinar recording he calls Mississippi “an election that I was lucky enough to be working in” and says he came down “every month or so”. By his account, he and Colom came up with the Medgar Evers ad, and he ran the Cindy Highprices meme page. The public sources read do not detail his role.
SourcesRyan Sayles
The campaign's content creator, according to Colom
Directed and edited the “pick another protein” ad, according to a Colom post on X reported by Fortune; Colom said he should be considered the cycle's breakout star. In the webinar, Chaudhary credits the ad to Colom's brother Andrew, to Ryan, the in-house video maker, and to advice from Patrick Gaspard.
SourcesWilbur Colom
The candidate's father; campaigned for Ronald Reagan and once ran for state treasurer as a Republican
Laid out the path to victory to the AP: raise the Black share of the electorate to 35% and win about one in four white votes.
SourcesKameisha Smith and Delta organizers
Local organizers in Holmes County
Her canvassing team registered 283 voters, drove residents to the polls and helped them sort out ballot problems, according to The National News Desk (KATV).
SourcesMississippi NAACP
Civil rights organization
In August, its executive director, Charles Taylor, estimated that registration and turnout drives by the NAACP and other groups could add 75,000 Black voters.
SourcesSenate Majority PAC
Democratic super PAC tied to the party's Senate leadership, legally barred from coordinating with the campaign
Only entered the race on 21 October, with $1.2 million for a statewide TV and digital ad.
Sources
In their own words
Participants' statementsWhat the candidate, Arun Chaudhary (in the webinar deck and recording) and allies said.
What the candidate, Arun Chaudhary (in the webinar deck and recording) and allies said. Paraphrased unless otherwise noted; deck captions and lines from the recording are quoted as said.
Opens with the candidate, not the agency: “It starts with a candidate who gets it.”
Arun Chaudhary, webinar deck, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar deck, Nov 2026, slide 2
Creative comes after the campaigning: “There is no creative without a campaign.” A later slide: “Get votes, don't win awards!”
Arun Chaudhary, webinar deck, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar deck, Nov 2026
A pyramid with viral organic videos at the top, vertical series in the middle and campaigning at the base; paid media comes in from the sides: “Digital Advertising is an accelerant”, “TV Advertising is air cover”.
Arun Chaudhary, webinar deck, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar deck, Nov 2026
Against the obsession with reach: “View count is a luxury.” And later: “Followers are a Luxury.”
Arun Chaudhary, webinar deck, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar deck, Nov 2026
11 more quotes
On the blocked judicial nomination, he said forgiving was easy, and added: “She's really going to regret it when we win on Nov. 3.”
Scott Colom, candidate, Semafor, How one GOP senator blocked a nominee, 9 Mar 2026
Wrote on X that the idea of turning the beef gaffe into something edgy came from Patrick Gaspard, and that Ryan Sayles directed and edited the ad.
Scott Colom, candidate, Fortune, 6 Nov 2026
Challenging Hyde-Smith to three debates, he called her “chicken”: “A debate requires people to have a fact checker.”
Scott Colom, candidate, WLOX, 29 Sep 2026
On deleting the AI video at the attorney general's request: “Clearly this was parody, maybe too close to home.” He said he would not spend donor money on litigation.
Scott Colom, candidate, Mississippi Free Press, 23 Oct 2026
Granted the math was hard, but said: “demographics are our friend here.”
Wilbur Colom, the candidate's father, AP, Aug 2026
Days before the election, in an NPR interview: “Mississippi has never been a lost cause.” Then: “We've been a betrayed cause.”
Scott Colom, candidate, Common Dreams, quoting NPR, 4 Nov 2026
On money in a small campaign: a certain amount is necessary, more is useful, and “more than that is debilitating”.
Arun Chaudhary, webinar recording, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar recording, Nov 2026
On the $2.2 million that, by his account, Democrats invested at the last minute in an ad with AI scenes: “$2.2 million, and they don't say the man's name right.”
Arun Chaudhary, webinar recording, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar recording, Nov 2026
On the AI video deleted in October: it was “the only time that we got in trouble as a campaign”, and he advised against that kind of piece.
Arun Chaudhary, webinar recording, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar recording, Nov 2026
On series: “you got to try five or six to get two or three that work.” In Mississippi, he said, about five were tried and one or two worked.
Arun Chaudhary, webinar recording, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar recording, Nov 2026
On reading humor aimed at the opponent: “Things that have more shares than they have likes are lurkers”, people who share without wanting to be seen liking; there, he thinks they were Republicans.
Arun Chaudhary, webinar recording, Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar recording, Nov 2026
Materials and exercises
Moves to take with you
Pick the moves that fit your context and add them to your kit.
Pick the moves that fit your context and add them to your kit.
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Vertical series filmed on the street
Short videos, shot upright with the candidate, in everyday places, organized into series with a fixed name and day. In Mississippi, the webinar deck shows barbershops, gas stations, fairs and the Grove in series such as “Mississippi Matters Monday”, used to make a little-known prosecutor known. According to Chaudhary, of about five series tried, one or two worked.
How to set it up, step by step
- Works when
- Works with a candidate who is at ease in front of a phone and has little money for TV.
- Don't use when
- Doesn't work if every video needs sign-off from several people: the series dies of slowness.
- Week −30 Try five or six simple formats, each with a name and a day of the week
- Week −30 Put the kit together: phone, lavalier mic, auto-captions
- Week −28 Film at every event on the schedule, even small ones
- Week −26 Post at least one video a day and react to the news the same day
- Week −20 Every two weeks, drop the format that isn't landing and repeat the one that is
- Week −2 In the final stretch, put one concrete ask in every episode
Team
- Candidate: films, talks and repeats the format
- Creator: directs, edits and posts the same day
- Scheduling: picks places with good pictures and real people
What to measure: People who signed up to volunteer or asked for a voting reminder through the series' links, per week.
Risks to watch: Filming people without asking or making voters look foolish: get consent from everyone on camera and never joke about people who didn't choose to be in the video.
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The opponent's words become a format
Take a recorded line from the opponent about an everyday cost and turn it into an ad and a series, with the original clip visible. In Mississippi, Hyde-Smith's answer on beef became “pick another protein”, directed by Ryan Sayles, and the deck shows how the format spread. According to Chaudhary, the beef theme went back further: it started on a proxy account and ran through the Mississippi Matters series.
How to set it up, step by step
- Works when
- Works when the line is authentic, recent and touches a cost voters feel.
- Don't use when
- Doesn't work with a line taken out of context: the correction becomes a bigger story than the ad.
- Week −36 Archive the opponent's interviews and remarks with date and source
- Week −30 Decide who can rule in under a day whether a line becomes an ad
- Week −16 Film real voters reacting, with signed releases
- Week −15 Publish with the original clip and the source on screen
- Week −12 Turn the reactions into a series and a stump-speech line
- Week −10 Buy media only for the version that already spread on its own
Team
- Archive: stores and tags the opponent's remarks
- Creator: writes, directs and edits the same day
- Legal: checks source, context and image rights
What to measure: Donations and volunteer sign-ups through the ad's links in the 72 hours after publication.
Risks to watch: Dishonest cuts or AI used to put words in someone's mouth: use only what was said, keep the full clip at hand and label any AI.
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Call out the opponent's absence
Turn the opponent's absence into a concrete format: debate invitations accepted in public, a count of town halls that never happened, a site with a missing-person poster. In Mississippi, Colom accepted the WLBT debate, challenged Hyde-Smith to three, and the campaign asked “Where's Cindy?”.
How to set it up, step by step
- Works when
- Works against someone who avoids the press and debates and whose low profile can be documented.
- Don't use when
- Doesn't work against a present, accessible opponent: it sounds like an excuse.
- Week −14 Gather the facts: town halls, interviews, debates refused
- Week −8 Publish the site with the facts and who paid for it
- Week −6 Accept every local outlet's debate invitation in public
- Week −5 Repeat the invitation on the street, on video, in every town you visit
- Week −1 Close on the contrast: the candidate who shows up and the empty chair
Team
- Research: finds and dates each absence
- Press: accepts invitations and asks for a reply
- Creative: turns the facts into a format
What to measure: Public events held by the candidate in towns the opponent skipped, and the people who signed up for them.
Risks to watch: Exaggerating or inventing absences: use only verifiable facts, with date and source, and correct any mistake in public.
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Other people's channels, origin declared
Get the videos onto supporters', students' and meme pages' accounts, always with the origin visible. The deck shows a video of Jackson State students posted on a supporter's account; in the recording, Chaudhary says he ran the Cindy Highprices page, whose Instagram posts Colom collaborated on by the end of the campaign, but he does not say whether the proxy account that attacked from the right declared its tie. The rule of declaring the origin is the site's.
How to set it up, step by step
- Works when
- Works when there are supporters with their own audience who want to take part without being paid.
- Don't use when
- Doesn't work with anonymous accounts run by the campaign: if it comes out, trust collapses and rules may be broken.
- Week −24 Write the rule: no campaign account without the campaign's name
- Week −22 Start a log of allied pages and who runs them
- Week −21 Post in collaboration with the candidate's account on any page the campaign runs
- Week −20 Offer clips with the source and a ready-made credit line
- Week −18 Ask everyone who receives material to say where it came from
- Week −6 Film with students and supporters for their own channels, with consent
- Week −1 In the final week, ask each allied channel for a get-out-the-vote video
Team
- Ally relations: invites, sends and keeps the log
- Compliance: checks credits, labels and payments
- Creator: films content for other people's channels
What to measure: Allied channels in the log that posted with the origin declared, and people who asked for a voting reminder through their links.
Risks to watch: Anonymous campaign pages are inauthentic behavior: declare the tie in the bio and the post, never pay without disclosure and never run fake accounts.
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Every vote counted after election day
Get the campaign ready for a long count: voters with affidavit ballots helped to fix their ID issues, volunteers and lawyers following each county. In Mississippi, the lead grew from 65 votes on 4 November to 2,575 on 10 November with affidavit and mail ballots, and Delta organizers helped voters sort out problems.
How to set it up, step by step
- Works when
- Works where provisional ballots or mail ballots are counted after election day.
- Don't use when
- Doesn't work if it only starts after the election: contacts and deadlines have to be ready beforehand.
- Week −10 Read the state's rules on provisional ballots, ID and deadlines
- Week −4 Train volunteers to guide voters without ID in line
- D-day week Log who voted by affidavit ballot and needs to go back to the clerk
- 1 week(s) after Call those voters and drive them to the clerk before the deadline
- 1 week(s) after Follow the count in every county until certification
- 2 week(s) after Thank in public everyone who cured their ballot
Team
- Voter protection: lawyers and observers per county
- Phones and rides: contacts voters and drives them to the clerk
- Data: tracks pending ballots and deadlines
What to measure: Voters with affidavit ballots who cured them before the deadline, per county.
Risks to watch: Pressuring voters or using personal data without consent: offer help, don't insist, and only contact people who gave their number.
Toolkit
What the campaign built, as far as it is documented, and what you can copy with an unknown candidate and little money.
What the campaign built, as far as it is documented, and what you can copy with an unknown candidate and little money. Where something is the site's suggestion, it says so.
Choose your country to see the equivalent tools and the legal points to check.
Operations
There is no public org chart. The deck mentions “Three independent but interconnecting teams”; in the recording, Chaudhary describes a small campaign: two local videographers, Ryan and KP, a full-time in-house digital team with Lacey as digital director, campaign manager Gerard, and himself, coming down about once a month. The rest comes from reporting.
Minimum team
- A candidate who films
- Talks to the phone, chats with strangers and is willing to repeat the same format many times. The deck opens with this.
- Content creator
- Directs and edits on the same day. Here, Ryan Sayles, whom Colom called “my content creator”, made the beef ad. Chaudhary says much of the material came from the two local videographers, Ryan and KP.
- Formats and series
- Someone who decides which videos become a series, names them, sets the day, and traces each format to its root. According to Chaudhary, the digital team held a set brainstorm every Wednesday; many ideas came from Colom himself, and decisions fell mostly to him and Gerard. Colom's twin brother appeared in several ads and is, Chaudhary says, a very talented creative.
- Paid media
- Digital buys to speed up what already works organically and TV as cover; $4.6 million in ads through 20 October, per AdImpact. For Chaudhary, TV is defense (“air cover”) and paid digital gives the series traction.
- Allies and field
- Mayors, churches, the NAACP, the state Democratic Party and local organizers such as those in the Delta, who register, drive and help voters. Under “Where's Cindy?”, mayors such as Charles Latham of Grenada filmed videos looking for the senator.
- Compliance
- The site's suggestion: one person who checks AI labels, “paid for by” lines and ties to allied pages before anything goes up. The video deleted in October shows why.
Weekly and daily rhythm
- Every dayShort vertical videos, in waves, according to the deck (“Always Be Campaigning”).
- Same day as the newsA reaction filmed by the candidate, in the “Vertical the news” format.
- Every Monday“Mississippi Matters Monday”, one of the most successful series, according to Chaudhary. “Throwback Thursdays”, a video chat over a beer, such as the one with Jessica Carter of the Mississippi Democratic Party, was dropped.
- Every WednesdayA set brainstorm for the digital team, according to Chaudhary.
- WeekendsStreet events, games and churches, which become material for the following week.
- Final stretch“Not one closing argument”, according to the deck: several pieces, including the ad at Medgar Evers' home, which told Evers' story and asked voters to use their vote to honor those who died for that right (AP). Chaudhary names four closing videos with wide organic reach: “pick another protein”, the conversations in line at a Trump rally in Corinth, “Senators”, a parody of the film Sinners posted on Halloween, and the Medgar Evers ad.
- After the electionLawyers and volunteers following the count of affidavit and mail ballots, county by county, until certification.
There is no public posting calendar. The rhythms above come from the deck, the webinar recording and reporting; exact frequencies were not disclosed.
Plan B
- With no national party money until late October, the campaign relied on its own channels and cheap-to-make videos.
- When the AI video was challenged, the campaign deleted it and moved on instead of spending on litigation.
- Supporters' and students' channels carry the message to people who don't follow the campaign.
- With the win decided by a few thousand votes, following up on affidavit ballots was part of the campaign.
- Suggestion: keep a copy of every published video, with the date, the source of any clips used and the AI label, to answer complaints the same day.
- With no thousands of volunteers to appear in videos, the campaign used family and staff, according to Chaudhary.
Technology
Cheap tools. What mattered was volume, regularity and a candidate willing to film.
- Phone and lavalier micLow
Vertical filming on the street, as seen in almost every frame of the deck.
- Reels, TikTok and FacebookFree
Daily posting of the series and reactions to the news.
- Meme and ally pagesFree
Reposting and making memes against the opponent. According to Chaudhary, the Cindy Highprices page, which he ran, posted on Instagram in collaboration with Colom, which made the tie visible. Only with authorship and any campaign tie declared (see Rules).
- Attack siteLow
A single page built around an easy-to-remember format, such as the “Where's Cindy?” poster, with who paid for it stated.
- Live video callsFree
Weekly series with allies, like the conversation with the state Democratic Party shown in the deck. That series, “Throwback Thursdays”, was dropped, according to Chaudhary.
- Digital and TV adsMillions of dollars
Digital to accelerate what already worked; TV for authority and reach. $4.6 million through 20 October, per AdImpact.
- Online donationsPlatform fees
About $5 million raised, according to Fortune; more from individual donors than his opponent since 2025, according to the AP.
- Generative AI toolsLow
In the deck, AI scenes with an on-screen label appear in an ad that, according to Chaudhary, Democrats paid for at the last minute. He says the unlabelled AI video deleted at the attorney general's request was the only time the campaign got in trouble, and advises against it.
Suggestion: columns for an allied-pages log
Date · Page or account and platform · Who runs it · Tie to the campaign (none, volunteer, paid, staff) · Tie declared in bio or post (yes/no) · Material received from the campaign · AI used and on-screen label (yes/no) · Post link · Campaign contact
Colom raised about $5 million, against just over $3 million for Hyde-Smith (Fortune, 6 Nov), and spent $4.6 million on ads through 20 October (AdImpact). Senate Majority PAC put in $1.2 million; on the other side, the AI-industry super PAC Leading the Future spent almost half a million dollars for Hyde-Smith (Mississippi Free Press). The deck shows “This is what $2,200,000 looks like”; in the recording, Chaudhary says it is what Democrats invested “at the last minute” in the “Cindy Hyde-Smith's” drive-thru ad, which he faults for mispronouncing the candidate's name. For him, a certain amount of money is necessary, more is useful and “more than that is debilitating”. The log above is the site's suggestion.
Communication
Humor aimed at the senator and what she said, never at the people who voted for her; local culture at the center. The formula below is the site's reading of the videos in the deck.
The formula for a vertical episode
- Open in a place A barbershop, a gas pump, a fair, a game-day parking lot. The place says who you are talking about.
- Put a real person next to you A barber, a Trump voter, a local resident. They speak in their own words.
- One concrete cost The price of beef, of gas, a closed hospital, Medicaid.
- The contrast with the opponent Something she said, on tape and sourced, or her absence: no town halls, no debates.
- Close with an action Vote, bring someone, check your registration. The site's suggestion: one action per video.
Messaging rules
- Film more than you think you need; the deck treats volume as part of quality.
- Use the opponent's words with the source and the full clip at hand.
- Criticize from the right when it is true (spending, absence, loyalty to Washington), without looking down on conservative voters' values.
- Respect local culture: hunting, college football, church. The deck has a slide called “Honor the animal”.
- Vertical for urgency, horizontal for solemn moments, like the ad at Medgar Evers' home.
- Label AI on screen, always, even in parody.
- Declare the campaign tie on any page or account that receives material from it.
- Use the opponent's nickname online and her real name in TV ads, where the nickname would seem rude, as Colom did with “Cindy Highprices”, according to Chaudhary.
- Boil the message down to a few fixed points and repeat them in every video, like Colom's four.
Sample vertical video script
[Vertical, candidate at a gas station, talking to the attendant] How much more does a tank cost than last year? [His answer] And beef? [Answer] When they asked our senator about beef, she said there are plenty of proteins to choose from. [Cut to the interview clip, source on screen] I think we can choose another senator. If you agree, check where you vote today. The link is below. [On-screen text: Paid for by {sign}]
Take it to your context
What works anywhere and what depended on Mississippi in 2026.
What works anywhere and what depended on Mississippi in 2026.
Works anywhere
- Film the candidate every day, vertically, in recognizable places and with recognizable people.
- Turn what worked into a series with a fixed name and day.
- React to the news the same day, with the candidate speaking.
- Use the opponent's exact words, sourced, instead of adjectives.
- Make the opponent's absence a concrete format: debates refused, town halls never held.
- Treat paid media as an accelerant for what already works, not as a starting point.
- Declare the origin of all material that circulates through allied pages, and label AI.
- Count every vote after the election: affidavit ballots, ID, deadlines.
- Try five or six series and keep only the two or three that work.
- When the candidate is unknown, fix the name and its pronunciation from the first video.
Depends on context
- Reels and TikTok
- Where the audience is on WhatsApp or YouTube, the same vertical series goes to statuses, channels or Shorts. Check local law on online political ads.
- The beef gaffe
- You can't order a gaffe. What travels is being ready: an archive of the opponent's interviews, a creator on call and a rule to use the full clip.
- A senator who didn't show up
- Works against someone who avoids debates and the press. Against an opponent who shows up, the same format works for broken promises or documented votes.
- The Black vote and civil rights
- The memory of Medgar Evers and the fight for the vote speak to a specific electorate. Elsewhere, look for the political memory your audience recognizes, with respect and without using pain as decoration.
- Affidavit ballots
- Where there are no provisional ballots, the equivalent work is checking registrations before the deadline and watching the count with observers.
- A state AI law
- Where there is no law, the site's rule still applies: a visible label on any AI-generated scene. In the EU, check the rules on political advertising and synthetic content.
Practice
ExerciseRehearse with the case's missions and situations.
Decide as the leadership
Six moments from the 2026 campaign. Choose what you would do and see what happened.
5-phase plan
Colom's sequence, from the primary to certification, as a checklist.
Colom's sequence, from the primary to certification, as a checklist. Your progress is saved in this browser.
Before you start
First months
September: the contrast
Last five weeks
The count and after
Check yourself
ExerciseFive questions, each explained after you answer.
Five questions, each explained after you answer.
Limits and sources
Rules
Speed and humor fit in an honest campaign.
Speed and humor fit in an honest campaign. Hiding who is speaking or fabricating scenes does not.
- Always label AI
- Every AI-generated scene carries an on-screen label, like the ad with the “Cindy's” drive-thru in the deck (“Drive-thru scenes are AI-generated.”), paid for at the last minute by Democrats, according to Chaudhary. In Mississippi, a 2024 law requires the label when someone's likeness is used; the 1 October video lacked it and was deleted.
- Allied pages with declared origin
- An account run by the campaign says it belongs to the campaign, in its name or bio. Anyone who receives campaign material should be able, and encouraged, to say where it came from. An anonymous page run by the campaign is, for this site, a red line. Instagram's collaboration feature, which shows the candidate as a co-author of the post, is one way to make the tie visible.
- Payments disclosed
- No hidden payments to pages or creators. Whoever pays, campaign or outside group, should appear in the post itself.
- Honest cuts
- The opponent's words appear with source and context. A cut that changes the meaning is manipulation, even if every word is true.
- Consent from people on camera
- Barbers, gas station attendants, students: they know they are being filmed, what for and where it will appear.
- Humor without contempt for voters
- The joke targets the candidate and what she did. Labels like RINO or nicknames must not turn into attacks on the people who vote for her.
- Help without pressure
- During the count, guide voters on ID and deadlines, offer rides and never pressure election officials.
- Local law
- Rules on AI, paid advertising, coordination with super PACs and counting deadlines vary by state and country. Check with a lawyer.
Limits
What this method doesn't do, and when it fails.
- A razor-thin margin
- Under 4,700 votes out of more than 960,000 in the unofficial count. Any factor could have decided it: Black turnout, the backlash to Louisiana v. Callais, late money, Ty Pinkins' independent run at 2.1%. No data isolates the weight of the videos.
- No full post-mortem yet
- The main practitioner sources so far are the deck and the recording of a webinar in which Arun Chaudhary, who says he worked on the campaign, presents the case; public sources do not detail his role. The recording is not public and has auto-generated subtitles. No one on the campaign has published a full written account.
- A proxy account with no declared tie
- Chaudhary says he ran the Cindy Highprices page and that by the end Colom collaborated on its Instagram posts, which made the tie visible there; on TikTok and X, he says, this happened less. The proxy account that attacked Hyde-Smith from the right (“Meanwhile, on the proxy account...”, in the deck) appears in the sources with no owner and no declared tie; the deck slides that follow, such as “Soypublican Cindy”, do not say which account made each piece. If the tie was not disclosed, that is a transparency risk; no source read says any rule was broken.
- AI without a label
- The 1 October video, which showed Hyde-Smith running from reporters, claimed to be “based on a true story” without saying it was AI. It was deleted after the attorney general said it appeared to violate state law.
- The deck's own numbers
- The views and follower counts in screenshots come from the deck and have not been audited, and only Chaudhary says what the $2.2 million figure refers to. The deck and the recording are the account of someone who worked on the campaign.
- Depends on the opponent
- The beef gaffe and Hyde-Smith's absence supplied the material. Against a present, careful opponent, attack formats yield less.
- Attacking from the right has a cost
- Calling a Republican a RINO or a “Soypublican” borrows the other side's language and can reinforce its terms. The effect on Black and progressive voters was not measured.
- Platform dependence
- Reels, TikTok and Facebook change algorithms and political-ad rules without notice; a series built on them can lose reach overnight.
Sources
Built from the deck and recording of an ECDA webinar presented by Arun Chaudhary and from reporting by Mississippi outlets and the AP,…
Built from the deck and recording of an ECDA webinar presented by Arun Chaudhary and from reporting by Mississippi outlets and the AP, March to 11 November 2026. Pages consulted on 12 November 2026.
24 sources
Who did it
- Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar deck, “Mississippi Midterms: How creative flipped an unexpected battleground” (not public) Nov 2026
- Arun Chaudhary, ECDA webinar recording, Nov 2026 (recording of the same webinar, with auto-generated subtitles; not public) Nov 2026
- Semafor: How one GOP senator blocked a nominee and ended up with a real opponent 9 Mar 2026
- Fortune: beef prices ad, Mississippi Senate race (Colom and Hyde-Smith) 6 Nov 2026
- WLOX: Colom challenges Hyde-Smith to three debates in Senate race 29 Sep 2026
- AP via WTOP: Will Mississippi send a Black Democrat to the US Senate? Scott Colom says don't count him out 7 Aug 2026
Data
- AP via WCAX: Senate Democrats launch first ad in Mississippi as their midterm optimism spreads to the South 20 Oct 2026
- WLOX / Gray: Mississippi Senate candidates Scott Colom and Cindy Hyde-Smith both ‘confident’ in winning race as it remains too close to call 4 Nov 2026
- Mississippi Free Press: Colom lead over Hyde-Smith grows, AP reports 4 Nov 2026
- WLOX: Colom leads Hyde-Smith as ballot count continues, deadline looms 10 Nov 2026
- Ballotpedia: Scott Colom
- Wikipedia: 2026 United States Senate election in Mississippi (ratings table)
- Wikipedia: Arun Chaudhary
- FEPS: Arun Chaudhary (profile)
- WLOX: AP projects Democrat Scott Colom as winner of highly-contested Mississippi U.S. Senate seat 11 Nov 2026
Press
- Mississippi Free Press: Scott Colom may have broken Mississippi law with Cindy Hyde-Smith AI ad, Lynn Fitch says 23 Oct 2026
- WLOX: Colom responds to AG's request to remove AI-generated ads 23 Oct 2026
- Mississippi Free Press: Scott Colom Wants to Make a Difference for Mississippi in the US Senate 27 Oct 2026
- Mississippi Today: Scott Colom has a question for Mississippi voters: Where's Cindy? (headline only; the page did not open) 17 Sep 2026
- Common Dreams: Scott Colom on Cusp of Historic Senate Upset in Deep-Red Mississippi, Fueled by Surge of Black Turnout 4 Nov 2026
- AP via KTAR: Scott Colom and Black Mississippians stand on the cusp of Senate history as vote count stretches on 7 Nov 2026
- The National News Desk via KATV: A historic first hangs on Mississippi's razor-close Senate count 8 Nov 2026
- Fox 5 Atlanta: Mississippi Senate Race: Democrat Colom leads Hyde-Smith 4 Nov 2026
- AP via WLOX: Mississippi elects Democrat Scott Colom as state's first Black US senator since Reconstruction 11 Nov 2026
Image: Jud McCranie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (adapted)
Updated 12 November 2026
Use this case
The text is Creative Commons BY 4.0: you can use, adapt and share it, in a class, an article or a training, as long as you credit the source.
Mendonça, V. (2026). Colom 2026: vertical video and memes in Mississippi. DIY for Change. https://janonismo.com/en/playbooks/colom-2026/ (updated 12 November 2026). CC BY 4.0.
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