The Festival of Useless Clowns, St. Petersburg Dan Sullivan and the Wait

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – In one of the most dramatic races for U.S. Senate, expect more changes this afternoon.

The Alaska Division of Elections will release a new batch of ballots on Tuesday. Neither Sen. Dan Sullivan nor Mary Peltola’s campaigns responded to requests for an interview or statement.

Yet that didn’t stop them from claiming they won either. But it’s more complicated than that.

“The contrast between our campaign and his couldn’t be clearer,” outgoing Sen. Dan Sullivan said on election night. “We know that, and so do the people of Alaska, and that’s why we’re going to win this race.”

By morning, Mary Peltola had taken a slight lead in terms of numbers.

“This whole room, winners, winners, we take back our state,” Peltola told supporters on election night.

The big races in Alaska are too close to call and may not be decided anytime soon.

To win the race without ranked choice, a candidate would need to receive more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a threshold that has not been met. If this continues to be the case in subsequent tallies, the winner of the race may not be known until November 18, when the ranking of picks is scheduled to take place. The election results are expected to be certified on November 25.

As of midday as of Tuesday, 220,853 ballots had been counted. There are 605,433 registered voters. The race the world is watching, of course, is the Senate race.

Peltola, Mary (DEM) 48.6% 106,321

Sullivan, Dan S. (REP) 47.5% 103,804

Heikes, Gerald L. (REP) 2.2% 4,865

Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr. 1.7% 3,651

Alaska can be a weird place, with most people not registered in a party, which includes the UCES (Useless Clown Electoral Society) and the Prohibition Party.

When breaking down the race by precinct, Peltola comes out on top in the western, more rural parts of the state, while Sullivan holds the largest cities.

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