Democrat Mary Peltola further increased her lead over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan on Tuesday, as election officials counted more than 24,000 additional votes. Peltola now leads 49% to 47.2% in one of the last undecided U.S. Senate elections.
Meanwhile, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins continues to hold a large lead in the gubernatorial race. He now has 49.9% of the primary vote in the four-to-three Republican race. If Kreiss-Tomkins exceeds 50% once counting ends on Nov. 18, he would win and the race would not require tabulation of ranked picks.
Her closest challenger, Republican business owner Bernadette Wilson, has 28.8%. Third-place candidate Dave Bronson, another Republican, said last week he did not see how a Republican candidate could win the race, but the Associated Press has not yet named a winner.
In the race for the United States House of Representatives, incumbent Republican Nick Begich is still ahead of his closest challenger, independent Bill Hill. Begich holds 48.9% to Hill’s 41%. Democrat Eric Hafner, held in a federal prison in New York, owns 7.5%.
Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal ranked-choice voting and other 2020 election reforms, remains lagging behind. “Yes” votes trail “no” votes by 47% to 53%.
The Division of Elections is expected to release more results Friday, but with the latest update, the Associated Press estimates 84 percent of votes have been counted.
The double Sullivan factor
The latest update shows Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., of Petersburg, with 4,027 votes in the Senate race. That’s about 200 votes shy of Peltola’s lead over Sen. Sullivan.
Sullivan Jr.’s candidacy dominated the final weeks of the race. Senator and allies say Democrats recruited him to confuse voters. The Trump administration has continued block certification if Senator Sullivan loses but would have won re-election if votes cast for both Sullivans had been counted for the incumbent. As things currently stand, this threshold would not be reached.
If the current order holds and no candidate gets 50%, Sullivan Jr. will be the first eliminated. The preliminary data file shows that nearly 30 percent of his voters ranked Peltola second — far more than Sen. Sullivan. If that doesn’t put Peltola above the 50% threshold, the next round will see third-place Gerald Heikes eliminated. His ranking favors Senator Sullivan.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump falsely claimed in a social media post that Senator Sullivan had already won. He argued that adding Sullivan Jr. and Heikes’ votes to the senator’s total gave him the advantage. His reasoning is contrary to the operation of the ranked choice system and Alaska election law.
The Associated Press and other major news organizations have yet to call Alaska statewide races for U.S. House, Senate and governor.
Alaska Public Media’s analysis of ranking data released so far by the Division of Elections shows Begich and Kreiss-Tomkins with significant leads, both before and after the ranked choices are tabulated. But Charles Stewart, a political science professor who runs the MIT Election Lab and has worked in the network’s decision desks, said he expected most media outlets to be cautious in calling races and base their decisions primarily on voters’ first choices until the Division of Elections tabulates the rankings and declares unofficial winners on Nov. 18.
“My experience with the media is that they are very, very conservative in this regard,” Stewart said Friday.
The Associated Press, which Alaska Public Media relies on for calling races, says it only calls races once they are “indisputable» that a late candidate cannot catch up with the leader.
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