Alaska and Mississippi Senate Races Remain Separated by Tiny Margins

Days after polls closed in the crucial midterm elections, the U.S. Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi remain separated by razor-thin margins, leaving both contests unresolved.

In Mississippi, Democratic candidate Scott Colom led incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 464,926 votes to 463,788 as of Thursday morning, with 95.6% of the vote counted, according to the Associated Press.

In Alaska, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola held a lead of fewer than 700 votes over incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, with roughly a quarter of the state's ballots still to be counted, according to the AP.

The Alaska contest has been further complicated by the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher who entered the race in May, became the subject of a Justice Department investigation opened in July. An October report from The New York Times said he had met with Democratic operatives and members of Peltola's campaign staff who encouraged him to run. Peltola has denied any involvement in the scheme.

One voter interviewed after casting his ballot Tuesday said he believed he had accidentally voted for the wrong Dan Sullivan. "I don't remember seeing the other Dan Sullivan, I totally forgot to look for two Dan Sullivans," the voter said. "I definitely intended to vote for the real Dan Sullivan."

As of Thursday morning, Daniel J. Sullivan, dubbed "Decoy Dan," had collected 3,600 votes from Alaskans, more than five times the 637-vote margin separating Sen. Sullivan and Peltola. Under Alaska's ranked choice voting system, if no candidate reaches a 50% share of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and those ballots are redirected to each voter's second choice.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the saga in a Thursday morning post on Truth Social, demanding that the votes cast for what he called the Fake Dan Sullivan be immediately awarded to the incumbent senator, which he said would hand Sen. Sullivan an easy victory and end the election. "There is no other fair solution!" Trump wrote.

In Mississippi, officials are still waiting to receive a batch of 3,600 mail-in ballots, according to a statement from Secretary of State Michael Watson. State law permits mail-in ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of the election, provided they were postmarked on or before Election Day. NBC News' Decision Desk estimated the number of ballots still to be counted at 45,000.

Mississippi has no formal process for recounts, making a legal fight over the results increasingly likely. "We will protect the process of this election, we'll protect the integrity of this election," Colom told reporters Wednesday, adding that he had "an army of lawyers" preparing for a court battle, Mississippi Public Broadcasting reported.

Hyde-Smith's team, meanwhile, said it remained assured the sitting senator would prevail. "Our campaign is closely monitoring the remaining count," campaign manager Scott Monssen told MPB in a statement. "We remain confident that when every legally cast vote is fully and accurately counted, Mississippians will have reelected Cindy Hyde-Smith." Fox News Digital reached out to all five campaigns for further comment.