Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned Thursday in Columbus, Mississippi, for Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican, in the 2026 midterms.
Colom, a state district attorney, addressed his decision to bring Harris to the state directly with the crowd. He said people had asked him, “Why would you do that?” His response, he told the audience: “Why not?”
During her remarks, Harris offered the crowd what she framed as advice she gives to young people she mentors. “You know, I mentor a lot of young people, and I talk to them sometimes and part of the advice I give them is, you know, never let someone else with limited ability to see your capacity be a limitation on your ambition,” she said.
The line drew little response from the audience. Harris then repeated it, this time rephrasing slightly: “Let me repeat that: Never let anybody else’s, somebody else’s limited ability to see your capacity to be a limitation on your ambition.” The second delivery drew a stronger reaction from rally-goers.
The Columbus appearance followed remarks Harris made Wednesday in Las Vegas to culinary workers, which also circulated widely on social media after video clips were shared online.
Harris, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, has had a mixed record as a campaign surrogate this cycle. Some Democratic candidates running in competitive races in Republican-leaning states and districts have chosen not to appear alongside her, a dynamic that played out earlier this year with a Democratic candidate in Kansas.
Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in decades, and Hyde-Smith enters the race as the incumbent in a state former President Trump carried by wide margins in recent elections.
