Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Republican House Rep. Nick Begich III moved closer to victory in Alaska’s general election as the Alaska Division of Elections added nearly 25,000 ballots to the state’s tally Tuesday evening.
With 245,470 first-choice ballots counted, Peltola now leads Republican U.S. Senator Dan S. Sullivan by 4,250 first-choice votes, or 48.8% to 47.1%. This represents an increase of more than 1,600 votes from Monday.
If the race goes to a preliminary runoff between Peltola and Sullivan, partial data released by the Division of Elections and analyzed by Beacon shows Peltola won that matchup as well.
The Associated Press estimates that about 84% of all ballots have been counted. A separate and independent estimate posted on Twitter find at least 37,000 votes remaining to be added to the statewide tally.
In the race for governor, Kreiss-Tomkins received 49.7% of the primary vote, ahead of three Republican competitors. In the race for the U.S. House of Representatives, Begich holds 48.8% of the primary vote, leading an independent challenger by a significant margin.
In Alaska’s general election, voters rank up to four candidates in order of preference. If a candidate in a particular race gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they win.
If no candidate reaches this threshold, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated and the votes for them are transferred to their voters’ second choice.
Eliminations and redistributions continue until only two candidates remain. Whoever gets the most votes wins.
Friday is the deadline for mail-in ballots sent from the United States to arrive and be counted. Division officials said they expect a significant update at that time.. Additional updates are possible on Wednesday and Thursday.
Preliminary ranked choice data indicates Senate leadership will not change
The Alaska Division of Elections is expected to conduct its official ranking of choices on Nov. 18, after the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive and still be counted.
In preliminary and partial tabulations of ranked choices According to the Alaska Beacon using data released by the division Tuesday, Sen. Sullivan gains 3,066 redistributed votes and Peltola gains 2,160, a net gain of 906 for Sen. Sullivan but not enough to overtake Peltola’s lead in first-choice votes.
The filing data does not yet include 9,909 ballots from rural Alaska precincts where ballots are initially counted manually.
Two-thirds of the first choice votes on these ballots I went to Peltolaaccording to summary data released separately by the division, indicating that even after the picks are ranked, Peltola will be in the lead.
Additionally, a more thorough vote count could improve Peltola’s margin. The Democratic candidate repeatedly won more first-choice votes than Sullivan in post-Election Day ballot counting; Monday, she led Sullivan by 2,517 votes out of 219,342 votes cast.which represents an improvement from his 636-vote lead at the end of Election Day.
It seems unlikely that America’s governor and legislative leaders will change either
In the gubernatorial race, Kreiss-Tomkins’ closest competitor is Republican candidate Bernadette Wilson, with 28.7 percent of the primary vote, followed by Republican Dave Bronson with 13.9 percent and Republican Treg Taylor with 7.3 percent.
Preliminary and partial totalizations of ranked choices by Beacon show that if Kreiss-Tomkins does not exceed the 50% threshold by November 18, he will easily receive the necessary votes once the runoff is used.
For the U.S. House of Representatives race, Begich has lost some primary vote share since Election Day, when he was almost exactly at the 50% threshold. That indicates a runoff will be necessary, but his closest challenger, independent Bill Hill, has 40.9 percent of the first-choice vote. Democratic candidate spoiler Eric Hafner, a man imprisoned in New York state for threatening federal officials, has 7.5 percent of the primary vote. Libertarian Jim McDermott holds 2.7%.
Preliminary and partial totalizations of ranked choices show Begich winning once McDermott and Hafner are eliminated.
Hill — the candidate endorsed by the Alaska Democratic Party — ran a campaign that attempted to paint Hafner as a fake candidate and not a real Democrat. Ranked choice charts show Hill won less than half of the second-choice votes from Hafner supporters.
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