Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the leading candidate for governor, barely cleared the all-important 50% mark in the latest election results released Thursday by the Alaska Division of Elections.
Her closest challenger, Republican business owner Bernadette Wilson, has 28.7%.
Thursday’s results added 5,723 early, absentee and contested ballots to the total, mostly from the Southeast. The Associated Press estimates that only 12% remain to be counted. Ballots sent from abroad have until November 18, when the final ballots will also be counted.
If Kreiss-Tomkins still has more than half of the votes by then, he will win the four-way race, with no ranked choices. It would also weaken the argument — circulating since Democrat Tom Begich left office in August — that a Kreiss-Tomkins victory was only possible because the other three candidates on the ballot are Republicans, thus splitting the conservative vote.
The Associated Press has not yet named a winner.
In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mary Peltola edged out Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan on Thursday. She now has 49% of the votes, compared to 46.8% for Senator Sullivan. Even though she doesn’t reach the 50% mark, she is currently passing another important threshold: her lead of 5,800 votes is more than Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s vote total.
In October, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit to preemptively block “any election results that could be affected by voter confusion.” He said that threshold would be met if Sen. Sullivan lost to Peltola by fewer votes than the other Sullivan. A district court judge threw out the case, but the Trump administration appealed. If Peltola’s lead over the senator remains greater than the other Sullivan’s vote total, that would appear to render the appeal moot.
Republican Rep. Nick Begich continues to lead the race for the U.S. House of Representatives and Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal Alaska’s election system, has fallen further behind in the latest results. “No” comes first with 53% of the votes.
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