Two U.S. Senate races and two gubernatorial races remain undecided... Alaska and Mississippi Senate races extremely close

[Financial News] With Democrats having secured majorities in both the Senate and the House in the U.S. midterm elections, the winners of four races for Senate seats and governor have yet to be determined.
The Alaska and Mississippi Senate races remain close, with narrow vote margins, while the Alaska and Kansas gubernatorial races are also awaiting final results.
According to The Associated Press (AP) on the 5th (local time), Democrats won nationwide and are set to hold majorities in both chambers of Congress next year, but vote counting is continuing in some areas.
In the House, results are still pending in 35 districts where control of seats is at stake. AP does not independently project election results; it calls a winner only when it determines that the trailing candidate cannot win, even if they receive all the remaining votes.
In the Mississippi Senate race, Democratic candidate Scott Colom is leading incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. With 96% of the vote counted, Colom is ahead by 1,145 votes. The gap has widened from an initial margin of just several dozen votes, but ballots remain, so it is too early to call the winner.
Provisional ballots, numbering in the thousands, are seen as a key factor that could determine the outcome. They are cast when a voter’s registration or eligibility needs to be verified, and are counted if election officials confirm their validity.

The Mississippi state government must process those ballots by the 10th. In the 2022 election, about 5,700 provisional ballots were counted.
Mississippi has no automatic recount system. However, those challenging the election results can ask a court to order a recount.
In Alaska’s Senate race, Democratic candidate Mary Peltola is narrowly leading incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. With 74% of the vote counted, Peltola has 48.2% and Sullivan 47.9%, a margin of 637 votes.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, so if no candidate wins a majority in the first round, additional counting is conducted to determine the final winner.
Under ranked-choice voting, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority in the first round, the candidate in last place is eliminated first, and the next-choice votes of voters who selected that candidate are redistributed among the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority.
Alaska election officials plan to conduct an additional count under ranked-choice voting on the 18th, 15 days after Election Day. As a result, the final winner of the Senate race is expected to become clear as early as that day.
Ranked-choice voting may also be used in the Alaska governor’s race. Democratic candidate Jonathan S. Kreiss-Tomkins is leading Republican candidate Bernadette Wilson by about 20 percentage points, but has received 49.2% of the vote with 74% counted, short of a majority. The gubernatorial race will also require additional counting if no candidate wins a majority in the first round.
Democratic candidate Cindy Holscher and Republican candidate Ty Masterson are locked in a close race for Kansas governor. With 99% of the vote counted, Holscher is ahead by 7,045 votes, but the gap in their vote shares is less than 1 percentage point.
Both candidates are former Kansas state senators. Masterson currently serves as president of the state Senate. In this election, Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton also made history, becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas in 94 years.
[email protected] Lee Seok-woo, international affairs correspondent Reporter