Democrat Mary Peltola again 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 races in the country. Meanwhile, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins continues to maintain a large lead in the governor’s race. He now has 49.9% of the first-choice vote in the four-way race against three Republicans. If Kreiss-Tomkins surpasses 50% once counting concludes on Nov. 18, she would win and the race would not require ranked-choice tabulation. Her closest rival, Republican businesswoman Bernadette Wilson, has 28.8%. Third-place candidate Dave Bronson, another Republican, said last week that he saw no way a Republican candidate could win the race, but the Associated Press has not yet announced a winner. In the race for the US House of Representatives, incumbent Republican Nick Begich is still ahead of his closest rival, independent Bill Hill. Begich has 48.9% to Hill’s 41%. Democrat Eric Hafner, an inmate in a federal prison in New York, has 7.5%. Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal ranked-choice voting and other 2020 election reforms, is failing, with “Yes” votes at 47% and “No” votes at 53%. The Division of Elections is scheduled to release more results on Friday, but with the latest update, the Associated Press estimates that 84% of votes have been counted. The Double Sullivan Factor Shortly after Tuesday’s results update, Peltola’s campaign manager, Cheryl Bruce, issued a statement saying her team is “exceptionally confident” that Peltola will be elected once all the votes are counted. “Once again, today’s vote makes it abundantly clear that Mary is on her way to a decisive victory, and there is no viable path to Senator Sullivan’s re-election,” Bruce said in a statement. Sullivan’s team did not issue a statement immediately following the updated results and did not respond to a request for comment. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., of Petersburg, remains in last place in the Senate race with 4,027 votes. That’s about 200 votes less than the number currently separating to the two frontrunners. Sullivan Jr.’s candidacy dominated the final weeks of the race. The senator and his allies say he was recruited by Democrats to confuse voters. The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit to block certification if Senator Sullivan loses, but he would have won re-election if the votes cast by Petersburg Sullivan had been counted for the incumbent. Preliminary data file shows that nearly 30% of his voters ranked Peltola as their second choice, much more than Senator Sullivan in second place. If that does not put Peltola above the 50% threshold, third-place finisher Gerald Heikes would be eliminated in the next round. His rankings favor Senator Sullivan. On Saturday, President Donald Trump falsely claimed in a social media post that Senator Sullivan had already won. Heikes put him ahead on the senator’s total. His reasoning is contrary to how Alaska’s ranked-choice system and election law works. The Associated Press and other major news organizations have not yet called Alaska’s statewide races for the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate and governor. But Charles Stewart, a political science professor who directs the MIT Election Laboratory and has worked on network decision-making desks, said he expected most media outlets to be cautious in calling elections and base their decisions. primarily in voters’ first choices until the Division of Elections tabulates the rankings and declares unofficial winners on Nov. 18. “My experience with media organizations is that they are very, very conservative in this regard,” Stewart said Friday only once it is “unquestionable” that a trailing candidate cannot catch up to the leader.
