The size of the majority that the Democrats will obtain in the House of Representatives and the Senate is still undecided, a week after Election Day, as it is still too early to decide more than 12 electoral races until Tuesday.
Democrats are heading to occupy 54 seats in the Senate as of January, but they may take one or two additional seats from Republicans as vote counting continues in Alaska and Mississippi.
In the House of Representatives, after winning 255 seats, the Democrats will obtain their largest electoral majority in the House since 2008, with the possibility of winning several additional seats with the announcement of the results of the remaining races.
The following is a review of the latest developments in some electoral races whose results have not yet been decided:
Mississippi's Senate seat remains undecided
By late Tuesday afternoon, Democratic candidate Scott Cullum was about 2,600 votes ahead of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the race for the state Senate seat.
There are two important deadlines in Mississippi's vote counting process this week: mail-in absentee ballots must arrive by Tuesday, and counties must submit certified election results, including provisional ballot votes, to state authorities by Friday.
The exact number of ballots that have not yet been counted remains unclear.
Vote counting continues in the Alaska Senate race
Democrat Mary Peltola led by about 2,500 votes over Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, after about 76 percent of the votes were counted in the Alaska Senate race.
If no candidate obtains a majority, the ranked-choice voting system will be applied on November 18, with the results officially certified on November 25.
More than a dozen House races remain undecided
In most undecided House races, the margin between the two leading candidates is less than one percentage point.
Four races remain undecided in North Carolina, the largest number among states. In California, only one race, in the 23rd District, affects the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
In the second district of South Carolina, the recount of votes continues in the race between Republican Joe Wilson and Democrat Zion Khalia, after Wilson led by about 3,000 votes with 99 percent of the votes counted.
In the first district of Minnesota, the race remained undecided, with a difference of about 300 votes between the leading candidates, after 99 percent of the votes were counted.
In Tennessee's Fourth District, the difference was about 300 votes between the Democrat, Victoria Broderick, and the Republican incumbent, Scott Desjarlais.
Two gubernatorial races remain undecided
Democrat Cindy Hoelscher has a lead of less than one percentage point over Republican Ty Masterson in the Kansas governor's race.
In the Alaska governor's race, Democrat Jonathan S. Chris Tomkins, by about 45,000 votes over Bernadette M. Wilson, by 49.6 percent versus 28.9 percent, after counting about 76 percent of the votes, provided that the ordinal selection system is applied if no candidate obtains more than 50 percent of the votes.
US President Donald Trump praised his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, describing him as a “great American patriot,” after the impeachment proceedings against the latter were dropped in the US House of Representatives.
In a post on the Truth Social platform, Trump described this procedural defeat as “the vindication of a great American patriot.”
Republicans thwarted an effort to impeach Hegseth over the war with Iran, representing a victory for President Trump a few days after his party suffered defeat in the midterm elections.
The House of Representatives voted by 211 votes to 204 votes in favor of referring the impeachment decision to the Judicial Committee, effectively obstructing a vote that was scheduled for Wednesday on filing formal charges against the Minister of Defense.
On Monday, Republican Representative Thomas Massie launched a measure to isolate Hegseth against the backdrop of the war in the Middle East.
This comes after the defeat of the Republican Party in the midterm elections, which President Donald Trump and his vice president, Jay Dee Vance, attributed to the repercussions of the war against Iran.
Earlier Tuesday, Hegseth denounced the attempt to remove him as a “farce,” defending his record of leading several military operations that were accompanied by criticism.
While speaking about the impeachment procedures, Hegseth told reporters: “It is a farce, it is a trick, and everyone knows that,” adding: “What one disgruntled and defeated member of Congress is trying to do is neither oversight nor accountability.” "It's just a political show."
Massie, a fierce critic of Trump, is leaving office after losing the Republican primary to a candidate supported by the president.
Trump expressed his support for Hegseth, and said Tuesday in a post on social media that he "gets an A+++ for his defense."
On Tuesday, Hegseth defended military interventions in Yemen, Iran and Venezuela, as well as strikes targeting boats suspected of belonging to drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific.
“I support every one of these operations,” he said. I was proud to implement it,” he said, comparing the attempt to isolate him to an attack on American forces.
The US Secretary of Defense added: “These provisions (for the isolation procedure) tell every one of them (American soldiers) that their service was a crime. “Their service was not a crime, they are heroes.”
In turn, Jay DeVance expressed his support for Hegseth, saying that he “clearly did not” commit any impeachable offenses.
Many of the articles of impeachment relate to the war on Iran, as Hegseth is accused of violating the War Powers Act, which requires consultation with Congress regarding US military interventions.
Hegseth is a strong advocate of the war on Iran, which is unpopular in the United States, which he described as a "courageous and historic" act.
