Democrat Mary Peltola increased her lead over Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in the Alaska Senate race after the state Division of Elections counted 5,000 additional ballots Thursday, bringing the total number of ballots counted to more than 256,000.
In the race for governor, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins received more than 50% of the primary vote after the final vote count, ahead of three Republican candidates. Kreiss-Tomkins said Wednesday he hopes that once all the ballots are counted, he will receive a comfortable majority of votes to become the state’s first Democratic governor since 2002.
Thousands of mail-in ballots still need to be counted in Alaska, with the final count scheduled for November 18.
Most of the ballots counted Thursday came from Juneau and surrounding areas of Southeast Alaska, which favored Peltola and Kreiss-Tomkins in their respective races.
Among the three Republicans vying for governor, Bernadette Wilson holds 28.7% of the primary vote; Dave Bronson has 13.7%; and Treg Taylor has 7.3%.
(Kreiss-Tomkins presents her political priorities while awaiting final election results)
In the Senate race, Peltola is poised to become the latest Democrat to flip a U.S. Senate seat previously held by a Republican. After Thursday’s vote count, she had 49.1 percent of the first-choice vote, ahead of Sullivan’s 46.8 percent.
Peltola, a former U.S. representative, saw her lead grow to 5,800 votes, about 1,825 votes more than her lead on Wednesday.
If the winner of the ranked choice election receives less than 50% of the first choice votes, the result will be determined by tabulation of the ranked choices.
The remaining candidates on the Senate ballot are Gerald Heikes, a perennial Republican candidate from Palmer who has 2.1 percent of the first-choice votes, and Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from Petersburg who has 1.6 percent of the first-choice votes.
If incumbent Sullivan was ranked by enough Heikes and Petersburg Sullivan voters, he could overtake Peltola. However, preliminary data indicates that Peltola would remain ahead of Sullivan even after a ranking of picks.
In the race for Alaska’s only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican incumbent Rep. Nick Begich is comfortably in the lead with 48.5 percent of the primary vote. Independent challenger Bill Hill holds 41.1%. Eric Hafner, a New York felon running as a Democratic candidate, holds 7.5%. Libertarian Jim McDermott holds 2.6%.
A ballot measure to repeal Alaska’s voting system failed to pass, with 52.8% of voters against. The measure was supported by the Alaska Republican Party.
A separate measure confirming the existing requirement that Alaska voters be U.S. citizens is on track to pass with 68.9% voting in favor.
Several state legislative elections remain too close to call as vote counting continues. However, the results so far indicate that bipartisan majorities dominated by Democrats will continue to control both the Alaska House of Representatives and Senate.
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