Two Senate Races Still Uncalled: Alaska At 626 Votes, Mississippi At 1,138

Two days after the election, two Senate races remain uncalled by the Associated Press, and neither can change who governs: Democrats hold both chambers. What Alaska and Mississippi will decide is whether the Senate majority is 55–45 or 56–44 — the margin every close vote of the next two years will be counted against.

Alaska: 626 Votes, And A Tabulation On November 18

In the AP's latest published tally, on Thursday, former Representative Mary Peltola leads Senator Dan Sullivan by 626 votes, with about 74 percent of the vote counted. (An earlier AP table read on Thursday morning put the margin at 637; the 626 figure is the newer count, and it is the one carried here.) Both candidates sit under 50 percent, which under Alaska's system makes a ranked-choice tabulation — scheduled for November 18 — all but certain: the namesake independent Daniel J. Sullivan and Republican Larry Heikes hold more votes between them than the margin.

President Trump posted Thursday morning demanding the other candidates' votes be "awarded" to Senator Sullivan. Alaska law awards nothing of the kind; second choices are tabulated as cast, on November 18. Domestic absentee ballots are due by November 13, overseas ballots by November 18, and the state's certification target is November 25.

Mississippi: 1,138 Votes, And A Deadline On Tuesday

In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom leads Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith 464,926 votes to 463,788 — a margin of 1,138, with about 96 percent counted. Secretary of State Michael Watson's office counts roughly 3,600 mail ballots still outstanding. Affidavit-ballot voters have until Tuesday, November 10 to cure identification issues; mail ballots arriving by then also count. Counties certify by November 13, and the state declares the result on December 3.

Mississippi has no runoff provision for this race and no automatic recount law; when the certificates are signed, the count is the count.

Either race could still flip. A 626-vote margin in a ranked-choice tabulation and a 1,138-vote margin with 3,600 ballots outstanding are both, in the plainest terms, undecided — which is why the AP has not called them. The majority is settled. Its size is waiting on the mail.

The two races are the tail of a seven-flip election. Democrats took Republican seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas and Maine on Tuesday, and held Michigan; the 54 seats already called are the majority. Alaska and Mississippi are the only Senate contests in the country still open, and both are open on margins smaller than the number of ballots still in envelopes.

There is no national clock on either. Alaska's schedule is set by its ranked-choice law — tabulation November 18, certification target November 25 — and Mississippi's by its mail and affidavit rules, with the state's declaration on December 3. The Senate that organises itself in January will know its exact size by early December; everything until then is a margin with an asterisk, and the asterisk has dates.

Both states have been here before, in opposite ways: Alaska's ranked-choice system was built for exactly this — a plurality leader waiting on second choices — while Mississippi's is a straight plurality count in which every outstanding envelope is a potential lead change. The systems differ; the wait is the same.

Sources: Associated Press tallies as published Thursday (Alaska margin: latest AP table, 626); Mississippi Secretary of State via AP (outstanding ballots, cure and certification dates).