Democrat Mary Peltola edged out Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in the Senate race Monday after another small batch of preliminary election results were released by the Alaska Division of Elections.
Tens of thousands of advance and mail-in ballots have yet to be counted after the Nov. 3 election, and the winner may not be known until Nov. 18, with election results expected to be certified on Nov. 25.
Monday’s recount brings the total number of ballots to more than 220,000, about 5,000 more than the previous update on November 4.
More results are expected to be released on Tuesday.
With the new numbers, Peltola, a former U.S. representative, increased her lead over Sullivan, a two-term Republican incumbent, to 2,517 first-choice votes, or about 1.1 percent of the vote. Peltola previously held a lead of just 637 votes, or 0.3%.
In Monday’s updated count, she received 106,321 first-choice votes, or 48.6 percent of the vote.
Sullivan received 103,804 votes, or 47.5% of the vote.
The Alaska race could be one of the last congressional elections in the United States, after the Republican Party’s implosion in the Nov. 3 national election saw Democrats regain control of the House and Senate by wide margins, amid voter anger over Republican President Donald Trump’s policies, including the costly war in Iran.
Both the Peltola and Sullivan campaigns have released statements outlining what they say is their path to victory, based on votes cast data released by the Alaska Division of Elections reflecting voting information available so far. The two sides also could face off in Anchorage Superior Court after Peltola’s campaign filed suit against the state late last week seeking data on rejected mail-in ballots.
On Monday evening, Peltola campaign manager Cheryl Bruce released a statement welcoming the results, saying they show voters are “fed up with high costs and corruption” and point to a possible Democratic victory.
About 68% of the votes counted Monday went to Peltola, “reflecting major support in key areas of Anchorage and Chevak,” Bruce wrote. “This overwhelming margin further strengthens Mary’s path to victory, and Mary looks forward to continuing her hard fight to cut costs and put Alaska in first place in the United States Senate after all votes are counted.”
(As in previous elections, Alaska continues to count ballots. When will we know who won?)
In Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, Gerald Heikes, a perennial Palmer Republican candidate, comes in third with 4,865 first-choice votes, or 2.2 percent of the vote.
The senator’s namesake challenger, Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from St. Petersburg, came in fourth with 3,651 votes, or 1.7 percent.
Despite St. Petersburg’s Sullivan and Heikes’ low numbers, their supporters’ ballots could help decide the winner of the race under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, assuming neither Peltola nor Sullivan will have more than 50 percent of the vote by Nov. 18, when the final ballots are scheduled to be counted.
In this case, both the namesake challenger and Heikes could be eliminated and the ballots in their favor would be redistributed to their supporters’ next candidates, helping to establish Peltola or the incumbent Sullivan as the winner.
Under ranked-choice voting in races with more than two candidates, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, then the candidate who received the fewest votes is eliminated. The votes of their supporters are then redistributed to these voters’ second choices. The process continues until one of the candidates receives more than 50% of the votes.
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