Senate Races in Mississippi and Alaska Remain Uncalled After Midterms
With Democrats already projected to hold at least 54 Senate seats, the two outstanding races will determine the final margin of the party's upper-chamber majority.
Two U.S. Senate races remained uncalled as of Wednesday morning following the 2026 midterm elections, with contests in Mississippi and Alaska still unresolved, according to CBS News elections and surveys executive director Anthony Salvanto, who reported on the status of both races Wednesday (CBS News).
Decision Desk HQ projected, as reported by The Hill, that Democrats will hold at least 54 Senate seats once called races are finalized. That projection does not include the outcomes of the Mississippi and Alaska contests, meaning the final Democratic caucus total could reach as high as 56 seats depending on those results.
Democrats flipped Republican-held Senate seats in Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa, according to The Hill's reporting on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Wednesday morning press conference. Each of those states had been held by Republican incumbents entering the 2026 cycle.
Schumer was scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday to address the midterm results. The Hill reported that Democrats pulled off victories in both chambers of Congress, winning back the House in addition to expanding their Senate presence, though the precise House seat count was not specified in available source material as of publication time.
The Mississippi race features circumstances that make a quick resolution less certain. Alaska's election system, which uses ranked-choice voting, has historically required additional counting rounds before a winner can be declared. The ranked-choice tabulation process in Alaska involves multiple rounds of ballot counting when no candidate receives a majority in the first round, a procedural requirement under Alaska state law that can extend the timeline for a final result by days.
Mississippi has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since John Stennis, who retired in 1989. The state's Senate seats have been held by Republicans continuously since 1989 and 2007, respectively, based on congressional records. A Democratic win there would represent a seat change with no direct modern precedent in that state.
Alaska last elected a senator outside the Republican Party in 1974, when Democrat Mike Gravel won re-election. The state has used ranked-choice voting for statewide federal races since 2022, following passage of a ballot initiative in November 2020. The 2022 special and general Senate elections under that system were called only after ranked-choice tabulation was completed in the weeks following election day.
The two uncalled races do not affect Democratic control of the Senate. With at least 54 projected seats, Democrats hold a majority regardless of the Mississippi and Alaska outcomes. The outstanding results will, however, determine the size of the majority that Schumer will lead when the 120th Congress convenes in January 2027.
Committee ratios, procedural thresholds for certain floor actions, and the composition of conference negotiations between chambers are all affected by the precise seat margin. A 54-seat majority and a 56-seat majority carry different operational implications for party leadership in scheduling legislation and managing internal dissent.
It is not yet known when final results in either state will be certified. For Mississippi, the state's official canvass deadline and any potential recount thresholds under Mississippi Code would govern the timeline. Those figures are available through the Mississippi Secretary of State's office. For Alaska, the ranked-choice tabulation schedule is published by the Alaska Division of Elections and would specify when subsequent counting rounds are completed and results certified.
What remains unknown is the vote margin in each state, the identity of the leading candidates as of publication, and whether either race is close enough to trigger automatic recount provisions under state law. The Alaska Division of Elections' official tabulation reports and the Mississippi Secretary of State's certified results would answer those questions once released.