The Georgia governor’s race and other unfinished business

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said he is resigning Thursday as the state awaits a final result in the too-close-to-call gubernatorial race between him and Democrat Stacy Abrams. Voters had sued Kemp in federal court saying he should not oversee vote counting in his own election, and now he won’t. Kemp’s campaign claims he has enough votes now to win, but Abrams insists uncounted provisional ballots could give her enough of a boost to force a runoff, which would happen if neither candidate got 50 percent of the vote. (A third-party candidate garnered about 1 percent in the governor’s race.)

A few other undecided races remain after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema are neck-and-neck in the U.S. Senate race in Arizona, where a large number of mail-in ballots has slowed vote counting. About 600,000 ballots were uncounted by early Thursday, and finishing the tally could take days. The Republican Party has filed a lawsuit in the state to try to speed up the count. In the Senate race in Florida, Republican Gov. Rick Scott has a 30,000-vote lead over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. That race might be close enough to trigger a mandatory recount. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner will announce the outcome this weekend.

The Senate race in Montana was decided Wednesday in favor of incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester despite President Donald Trump and other Republicans campaigning heavily for his GOP opponent, Matt Rosendale. In a Georgia congressional race, Republican Rep. Karen Handel early Thursday conceded to Democratic challenger Lucy McBath. Handel won an expensive special election to represent the 6th District in 2017 against Democrat Jon Ossoff, who was heavily funded by Planned Parenthood. Handel left the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation in 2012 after trying to stop Komen’s donations to Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, voters in several California congressional districts are still waiting to see who will represent them in Congress.