WASHINGTON (AP) — There are just four races for U.S. Senate and governor that The Associated Press has not yet called as of Thursday.
Contests in Alaska, Kansas and Mississippi have narrow margins with votes still outstanding even as the scale of Democrats' midterm victory across the country comes into focus, ensuring the party will control the House and the Senate next year.
In the House, 35 races in which party control of the seat is at stake have
yet to be called.
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidate to close the gap.
In Mississippi’s Senate race, Democrat Scott Colom has seen his lead of a few dozen votes over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith grow to 1,145 votes with 96% of ballots counted.
Several thousand provisional ballots are expected to be counted in the race, and the state has until Nov. 10 to resolve those ballots. Those votes will be decisive. In 2022, the state counted about 5,700 provisional ballots. Mississippi does not have an automatic recount process, but a challenger can seek a court order for one.
The AP also has not called Alaska’s Senate contest between incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola, who had a 637-vote lead over Sullivan with an estimated 74% of votes counted. Peltola had 48.2% of the votes, to Sullivan's 47.9%. Under Alaska law, if neither candidate gets more than 50% of the votes then it goes to ranked-choice tabulation.
Also in Alaska, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has a 20-percentage-point lead over Republican Bernadette Wilson in the governor’s race. Kreiss-Tomkins had 49.2% of the vote with an estimated 74% of the ballots counted.
Like the Senate contest, the governor’s election advances to another round if no candidate gets more than 50% of the votes.
In Kansas, Democrat Cindy Holscher has less than a 1-percentage-point lead over Republican Ty Masterson in the governor’s race. Holscher’s 7,045-vote lead with an estimated 99% of votes counted comes after Democrat Adam Hamilton became the first member of his party to win a Senate seat in the state in nearly a century.
Holscher and Masterson both serve in the state Senate, where the Republican serves as its president.
