Why Mary Peltola is on track to win in Alaska, even if ranked ballots come into play

As Alaska continues to count and report votes weeks after Election Day, Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan is increasingly unlikely to retain his post.

His Democratic challenger, Mary Peltola, is on track to win the still-unresolved Senate race under either possible scenario — with an outright majority, or if the race goes to ranked-choice voting, according to an NBC News Decision Desk analysis of outstanding and tabulated votes.

Peltola currently leads Sullivan by 3.7 percentage points, or just over 10,000 votes. With 96% of the votes expected, NBC News’ Decision Desk now estimates that Peltola is likely to win this race, although we may have to wait until Wednesday, November 18 to know the final result.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, Alaska determines a winner using ranked choice voting, in which the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated one by one and their votes are redistributed based on each voter’s preferences. If a voter has not ranked the remaining candidates, their ballots are considered “exhausted” and are excluded from the final vote count.

Wednesday is the deadline in Alaska for the final mail-in ballots to be received by election officials, one reason this close race has lasted so long. Alaska reports its votes unevenly, and NBC News expects to receive the rest of those votes early next week.

Nov. 18 is also the day the state Division of Elections would conduct the ranking of choices, if necessary.

If Peltola gets more than 50% of the vote, she will win the election without needing to go through the ranked choice tabulation process. She only needs 53.8% of the remaining votes to cross that milestone – a real possibility given her strength in recent voting reports. Friday evening, she obtained 58% of the new votes.

Sullivan, the incumbent, has two distinct paths to gaining ground and winning the election: closing the gap with the first choice ranking, or closing the gap through the ranked choice process. An analysis of ballots already tabulated by NBC News Decision Desk shows that the first path is highly unlikely and the second is probably impossible.

The first path Sullivan could take to return would be to overtake Peltola in the top pick rankings. With about 12,000 votes outstanding, Sullivan would need to win about 92% of them to be tied with Peltola. That would be about 46 points better than his results in the vote count so far, and well above the percentage received by either candidate in any batch of ballots received so far. As of Friday evening, he received only 38% of the new votes.

The second path for Sullivan to regain the lead is through the ranked-choice process, but an analysis of the ballots shows why that path is effectively closed to him.

There are currently 11,300 ballots counted with first-choice votes for candidates other than Peltola and Sullivan. These ballots may be redistributed as part of the ranked choice process. With 4% of the total votes outstanding, the number of ballots with first-choice votes for candidates other than Peltola and Sullivan could total around 12,000. For Sullivan to obtain 10,400 ballots out of a total of 12,000 and close the gap with Peltola, he would need to win around 93% of the redistributed votes.

However, even this high number is deceptively optimistic for Sullivan because of what we already know about how people rank candidates.

The Alaska Division of Elections publishes a “record of votes cast” for the more than 270,000 ballots currently tabulated. These records show exactly how each candidate is ranked on each ballot.

Our analysis of these ballots shows that Sullivan actually gets some votes through the ranked-choice process, receiving a significant transfer of votes from voters who supported Republican Gerald Heikes, who is in third place. But the most important thing about these votes is that a large percentage of the ballots of those who supported other candidates are “exhausted” in the process of tabulating the ranked choices.

More than 45 percent of voters who listed Heikes, Dan J. Sullivan Jr. or a write-in candidate did not list Peltola or Sen. Dan S. Sullivan as a later choice, meaning those ballots will play no role in ranking the choices.