Mary Peltola, a Democrat, widened her lead over Senator Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican, in the latest vote tally in Alaska’s Senate race, but the election remained uncalled on Friday as the count continued.
If neither candidate wins an outright majority, the race will be decided next week by ranked-choice tabulation.
Ms. Peltola had 49.8 percent of the vote and led Mr. Sullivan by nearly four percentage points in incomplete results as of Friday night. She is on track to eventually prevail, according to a New York Times analysis.
The race between Mr. Sullivan, a two-term incumbent, and Ms. Peltola, a former congresswoman, is the only Senate battle still uncalled in a midterm cycle that featured sweeping Democratic victories.
A spokesman for Mr. Sullivan, Nate Adams, said on Friday night after the latest release of results: “We’re still waiting for every ballot to be counted. And we’ll see what happens from there.”
The delay in Alaska is in part because of the time the state allows for mail ballots to be received and counted and in part because of the state’s unique ranked-choice system. Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Peltola faced two other candidates after emerging from a nonpartisan primary in August.
In Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, voters can rank the candidates on the ballot in order of preference. If no candidate gets over 50 percent of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their supporters’ second-choice votes are counted. The tabulation continues until two candidates are left; the candidate with more votes wins.
In Alaska, Ms. Peltola and Mr. Sullivan contended with Gerald L. Heikes, a Republican, and Dan J. Sullivan, an unaffiliated candidate with a similar name to the Republican senator. Mr. Heikes and Dan J. Sullivan have combined to win about 4 percent of the vote so far.
Democrats had recruited Mr. Heikes and Dan J. Sullivan onto the ballot in an effort to dilute Senator Sullivan’s vote share. The Times analysis found that among voters who picked Dan J. Sullivan as their first choice, more selected Ms. Peltola as their second choice than picked Senator Sullivan.
Ms. Peltola, a centrist whose campaign slogan was “fish, family and freedom,” would be the first Alaska Native elected to the Senate. She would also be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alaska in nearly two decades.
Democrats, riding widespread voter frustration with high prices in President Trump’s second term, have won 55 Senate seats in the midterms, securing the largest majority held by either party since President Barack Obama’s first term.
The president’s war in Iran and his tariff fight with Canada adversely affected Alaska, where voters faced particularly high gasoline prices. Senator Sullivan decided to campaign with Mr. Trump, despite the president’s poor approval ratings, in a bid to activate conservative Republican voters.
Mr. Trump won Alaska by about 14 percentage points in 2024, but the state has been gradually shifting left in presidential elections over the last quarter-century.
If Ms. Peltola were to win the Senate race, it would give Democrats 56 seats in the chamber, more than they have captured in any election since Mr. Obama won the presidency in 2008.
About The Author
