Mississippi's nailbiting wait to find out who won the southern state's Senate race is nearly over a week after the US midterm elections, in a contest that could deliver their first Democratic senator in nearly four decades.
Scott Colom, the Democrat, holds a lead of about 2,500 ballots - less than 1% - over his Republican opponent, the incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, according to the latest tally.
If he wins, Colom would become the Magnolia State's first black senator in over 140 years.
He would also pad the Democratic Senate majority-elect to 55 seats, with a knife-edge race in Alaska still to be called.
The Democrat's razor-thin advantage has defied political gravity in a conservative fortress that President Donald Trump won in 2024 by over 22 points.
State law holds that the deadline to certify results is this Friday, but thousands of postal and affidavit ballots remain uncounted.
Affidavit ballots are ones that were not immediately accepted because of a discrepancy such as lacking proper ID on election day.
In such cases, voters are asked to fill out a provisional ballot and return to resolve the issue. The deadline for both affidavit and mail-in ballots is on Tuesday.
State officials estimate between 12,000 and 20,000 affidavit ballots were cast.
