Democrats regained control of both chambers of the United States Congress in this year’s midterm elections, with a wave of victories that party leader Hakeem Jeffries likened to an “American tsunami”. But as of Wednesday night, two US Senate races remain undecided. A cliffhanger in the southeastern state of Mississippi and a scandal-plagued Alaska race are the final Senate contests to be tallied.
As it stands, the Democrats will usher in the 120th Congress on January 3 with a majority of at least 54 seats in the 100-member Senate. If they win both Mississippi and Alaska, they will need fewer Republican breakaways to avoid the filibuster, a means by which the minority party can indefinitely stall legislation in the chamber. Filibusters can be avoided with a 60-member vote.
So, why are Alaska’s and Mississippi’s Senate races still up in the air? Al Jazeera breaks it down with this brief explainer. The Republican stronghold of Mississippi was an unlikely Senate battleground this year.
The last time the state voted for a Democratic president was in 1976. The last time it elected a Democrat to statewide office was more than a decade ago, in 2015. But the race between incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, and her Democratic challenger, Scott Colom, proved tighter than expected.
The contest remains too close to call, with both candidates holding about 49 percent of the vote, according to The (AP) news agency. Ninety-six percent of the ballots have been counted so far. As of Wednesday night, Colom was leading Hyde-Smith by a razor-thin margin of 1,138 votes, with a few thousand provisional and mail-in absentee ballots left to be counted.
Provisional ballots, also called “affidavit ballots”, are supplied to voters whose eligibility is uncertain. This can happen when a voter fails to present the appropriate identification documents at their local polling precinct. Mississippi allows 10 days for such votes to be processed.
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