A lawsuit written to activate only with a loss is still waiting for one.

…(cont) By 4 November, Mississippi had its own numbers to argue over: Democrat Scott Colom led Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by a little over 2,000 votes, 461,370 to 459,201, under one percentage point, in a race The Hill had already called too close to call. On 5 November — twelve days after the Alaska suit was filed, not the same week — the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent Mississippi election officials a demand to preserve every affidavit ballot in the state, the documents The Hill reported are typically called provisional ballots, and called the demand a first step toward possible legal action.

The same day, the Washington Examiner reported the Justice Department had gone quiet on its own Alaska investigation. Peltola led Sullivan 102,701 to 102,075, a 626-vote margin, with 74 percent of the state's ballots counted. The department that had filed a contingent lawsuit on 24 October had nothing new to add about it, and the count stayed open.

The lawsuit written to trigger on a loss is still waiting for the loss. So is the filing Mississippi copied from it.

Scott Colom says the "toss-up" label alone cost him money he needed to win outright, before any lawsuit entered the picture — a forecaster calling a race close enough to doubt is itself a fundraising event, just not one that pays him. The lead he is actually sitting on, a little over 2,000 votes, is harder to answer than a label. It only has to outlast the lawsuits that are waiting on it, hon.