As final ballots from the midterm elections get tallied, a handful of races are still too close to call or will head to runoffs, including three Senate races, 12 in the House and Georgia’s governorship, where Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams is refusing to concede as a number of absentee and provisional ballots have yet to be counted. A nonprofit group filed an emergency lawsuit Tuesday to prevent Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Stacey Abrams’s Republican opponent, from any involvement in election results, including a possible runoff or recount.
Turnout for Tuesday’s election was higher than any midterm election in the past 50 years, with an estimated 114 million people casting ballots, although half the voting-age population still did not vote. Three Senate races remain undecided. In Arizona, Republican Martha McSally currently leads Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in the Senate race by around 1 percentage point, but over half a million votes remain uncounted. In Florida, Democratic incumbent Senator Bill Nelson has called for a recount in his race against Governor Rick Scott, who currently holds less than a half percentage point lead. Mississippi’s Senate race will head to a runoff later this month.
Meanwhile, in Georgia’s 6th District, gun control advocate Lucy McBath declared victory Wednesday, but Republican opponent Karen Handel has yet to concede and says she may call for a recount. McBath’s 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was shot and killed in 2012 by a white man who shot into the car of African-American teenagers because they were playing loud music. McBath ran on a platform of tighter gun control.