Here are all the races still uncalled as Senate control hangs on 2 states — and maybe a Georgia runoff redux

Control of both chambers of Congress is still up for grabs Wednesday morning, with the Senate coming down to a pair of uncalled toss-up races — and the possibility that a runoff in Georgia could once again decide the majority.

And while Republicans still have the inside track to retake the House, a large number of the most competitive House seats remain uncalled, after the GOP failed to capture numerous swing seats the party expected to flip on Tuesday.

Here are all the major outstanding contests, and where some of the ballots that still need to be counted could come from.

The Senate comes down to two key swing states — and maybe a runoff

Democrat John Fetterman flipped Pennsylvania early Wednesday morning, giving his party 48 seats, while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) secured reelection late Wednesday morning. That gives Democrats 48 seats and Republicans 49 — meaning whichever party wins two of the three outstanding contests in Arizona, Georgia — which is headed to another runoff — and Nevada will control the Senate.

Arizona and Nevada are the biggest question marks, with significant numbers of votes still to be counted in both states. If either party sweeps those two states, it will take control of the Senate regardless of what happens in Georgia next month.

Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is facing off with Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada. Laxalt leads with more than 70 percent of the expected vote counted. But his advantage is tenuous because of a glut of potentially Democratic-leaning outstanding ballots. The state’s two most populous counties — Democratic-leaning Clark County, home of Las Vegas, and battleground Washoe County, home of Reno — won’t start counting mail ballots received on Election Day until Wednesday at the earliest, The Nevada Independent reported. The two counties make up nearly 90 percent of the state’s population.

Additionally, ballots that have a postmark from the United States Postal Service by Election Day, but are delivered to election officials by Saturday Nov. 12, will also be counted.

Arizona, too, still has many votes outstanding. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has the edge, and his lead over Republican Blake Masters is expected to shrink dramatically — but not erode completely. As of early Wednesday morning, around 60 percent of the vote was counted in the state.

Election officials there have long warned that this would be the case. In Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, mail ballots that were returned close to Election Day will not be tallied until Wednesday at the earliest. Maricopa Recorder Stephen Richer, the county's chief election officer, announced Wednesday that officials received approximately 275,000 mail ballots on Tuesday. "This number is immense," Richer said, adding that signature review on those ballots — a key step before they can be counted — will take place "today, tomorrow and the next day."

Additionally, ballots that were cast at polling places and could not be read by tabulation machines — reportedly a widespread occurrence in Maricopa — must now be tallied at central voting locations. Officials said before the election that they hoped to have 99 percent of ballots tabulated by Friday.

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock leads Republican Herschel Walker narrowly. The problem for Warnock — and Democrats — is that the incumbent fell below a majority of the vote, which triggered a Dec. 6 runoff between Warnock and Walker. The race was officially sent to a runoff on Wednesday afternoon.

If the two parties split Arizona and Nevada, Senate control would once again come down to the Peach State, just as it did in 2020. Two years ago, Democrats swept a pair of runoffs in the state, securing a 50/50 split in the chamber and making Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote.

Warnock will finish in first in the November election, but that doesn't guarantee that he will prevail in December. In one of the two 2020 runoffs, then-Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) also finished just shy of the 50 percent threshold. But now-Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) stormed past him to win the race for a full term in the early 2021 runoff. Warnock, meanwhile, also won a special election Senate runoff in 2021, defeating then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) after the pair emerged from a fractured November field.

Warnock's victory then gave him two years in the Senate, while this year's contest will decide a full six-year term.

One significant difference for this year's runoff is the timing. Runoffs in the state used to be in early January. But after suffering those losses in 2021, Georgia Republicans changed the law in the state to bump runoffs up by about a month, setting them for early December.

GOP ahead in House battle — but winning smaller-than-expected gains

Republicans are still leading the race for the House majority, but the number of uncalled races point to how surprisingly close the battle for the chamber has been.

Of the 26 House races POLITICO forecast as “toss-ups,” just 14 were called as of early Wednesday afternoon. Another 20 races POLITICO rated as “Lean Democrat” or “Lean Republican” are also uncalled. Altogether, that includes nine races in California, a slow-counting state — one of several reasons why resolving control of the House majority could take some time.

In New York, two upstate bellwether races remain uncalled, in the 22nd District where the GOP has the lead and the 18th District where Democrats are leading.

One toss-up district in Pennsylvania remain uncalled — but Democratic Reps. Susan Wild has the lead.

Democratic incumbents also hold narrow leads in some of their uncalled toss-up races sprinkled throughout the country, including seats in Connecticut, Maine and Washington. And in New Mexico, Democratic challenger Gabe Vasquez is battling to unseat Republican incumbent Yvette Herrell.

California and Nevada — where counting can be slow and ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive later and still be counted — also have numerous uncalled House battleground races.

Western governor races still big question marks

For similar reasons to their Senate counterparts, the gubernatorial contests in Nevada and Arizona both remain uncalled.

Republican Joe Lombardo has a lead over Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in Nevada, while Democrat Katie Hobbs is up over Republican Kari Lake in Arizona for the open seat race. Like the Senate races, those races are expected to tighten significantly, or outright flip, as more votes are counted.

It is worth noting that both Democratic candidates are running a bit behind their respective Senate incumbents, meaning these contests will likely be closer. Similarly, the secretary of state races in these states remain uncalled, with Democrats staking out a bit of a larger lead.

Another big uncalled race is the open seat contest for governor of Oregon. There, with roughly two-thirds of the vote counted, Democrat Tina Kotek has a narrow lead over Republican Christine Drazan, with independent candidate Betsy Johnson trailing in the high single digits.

The predominantly vote-by-mail state has taken time to tally all its ballots in the past. In 2020, it took until the Friday after the election for 90 percent of its ballots to be tallied. Oregon, too, has also instituted a postmarked-by Election Day law for the first time this year, meaning ballots that arrive up to a week after the election will still count as long as postal officials marked them by Nov. 8.

One final uncalled — but safely Republican — Senate seat

Alaska's Senate race is also unresolved. The question is not which party will control the seat but which Republican will win it.

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski is facing a challenge from Trump-backed Republican, Kelly Tshibaka, after Murkowski voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2021. Both Republicans advanced through Alaska's new top-four, all-party primary into a ranked-choice general election. Murkowski is currently trailing Tshibaka in the vote count, but the incumbent is more likely to pick up Democratic voters who ranked her second in a ranked-choice retabulation, which would take place in late November if no candidate gets to 50 percent.

Kelly Hooper contributed to this report.