It will be at least a week before Alaska’s most competitive races come into focus. And even longer before ranked choice tabulation occurs and final winners are known. But analysts are working to read the tea leaves.
Here are six takeaways from what we know so far.
1. The United States Senate race remains far too close to call and will be for days.
By Nov. 4, Democrat Mary Peltola was a few hundred votes ahead of Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. But lots of votes remain to be counted and, assuming no one gets over 50%, the state will still have to tabulate the ranked choices, which will happen on Nov. 18.
Still, many theories and memos are in circulation that predict the race outcome. Some calculate the partisan tilt of the absentee, early, and rural ballots that remain to be counted. Some examine the Cast Vote Record (CVR). That’s the raw ballot data the Alaska Division of Elections is releasing, based on preliminary counts. The CVR allows any armchair analyst to peek at the ballot rankings. It’s tantalizing. But this is a close race and it’s prone to shifting. Keep up with the official results here or sources based on them like ours.
If Peltola remains in the lead, there’s no sign that the Trump administration or Gov. Mike Dunleavy will give up on the idea of blocking certification to investigate whether confused Sullivan supporters accidentally voted for the other Dan Sullivan on the ballot.
Daniel J. Sullivan of Petersburg is in last place, but University of Alaska Anchorage Professor Forrest Nabors pointed out that if you add the votes of both Sullivans together, it exceeds Peltola’s count.
“If you like peace and you don't like partisan drama, that's not a good sign,” Nabors said. “Because that could then give the pretext to the executive branch in our state government to, you know, lodge a protest [and] potentially withhold certification.”
2. Kreiss-Tomkins is likely to be Alaska’s next governor.
For the first time since Gov. Tony Knowles won a second term in 1998, Alaska is on track to send a Democrat to the governor’s mansion.
As of the latest results update on Nov. 4, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has 49% of first-choice votes. If he ultimately wins a majority — 50% plus one vote — the race will not require ranked choice tabulation.
Jim Lottsfeldt, a strategist who frequently works on left-leaning campaigns, said he expects the outstanding vote will push Kreiss-Tomkins over the top.
“I think he wins this race outright before it ever goes to ranking,” Lottsfeldt said.
But even if Kreiss-Tomkins does not cross the 50% threshold in first-choice votes, Republicans’ path to a win is extremely narrow. It would require nearly every Republican voter to rank every other Republican candidate, and for nearly none to rank Kreiss-Tomkins.
According to an Alaska Public Media analysis of raw vote data posted by the Alaska Division of Elections, Republican voters so far are not ranking in sufficient numbers to allow a GOP candidate to win.
For instance: of the nearly 16,000 people who ranked fourth-place Republican Treg Taylor first, about 60% ranked another Republican second. About 5% ranked Kreiss-Tomkins second. And about a third didn’t rank another candidate.
The Associated Press, however, has yet to call the race, meaning it remains unsettled.
On Nov. 3, Bronson told Alaska Public Media he didn’t see a path to a Republican victory. Top-polling Republican Bernadette Wilson, who got roughly 29% of the first-choice vote, is holding out hope.
“Remain steadfast in prayer,” Wilson told supporters on social media Nov. 4.
3. Republican U.S. Rep. Begich III seems on track to win a second term.
Nationally, it was a good year to be a Democrat. Unfortunately for Alaska Democrats, the only candidate running as a D in the U.S. House race was Eric Hafner. He's an inmate serving 20 years in a federal prison in New York for terroristic threatening. More than 15,000 Alaskans voted for him, perhaps because of his party affiliation. Or maybe as a protest vote of some kind.
Independent candidate Bill Hill, a political newcomer, had the endorsement of the Alaska Democratic Party. He’s running well behind Republican Congressman Nick Begich III who has 49.5% of the vote to Hill’s 40.3%.
4. Tens of thousands of ballots remain. No one knows how they’ll break, but plenty have guesses.
So far, election officials have counted roughly 216,000 votes. Thousands of ballots remain.
The ballots already counted should include nearly all Election Day votes and early votes cast in regional offices through Oct. 29 — the Thursday before Election Day. Plus, it includes some number of absentee ballots.
We do not know exactly how many ballots remain outstanding. Different analysts estimate it could be anywhere from 50,000 to 75,000.
The Alaska Division of Elections is scheduled to post result updates on Tuesday, Nov. 10, Friday, Nov. 13, and Wednesday, Nov. 18, when ranked choice tabulation begins. The Nov. 10 update is expected to be the most substantial, including almost all of the remaining early vote, plus a large batch of absentee ballots, mostly from off the road system.
It’s impossible to know for sure which way the remaining ballots lean. And depending on who you ask, you’ll get very different answers.
If you ask Pollster Ivan Moore, who runs Alaska Survey Research, the outstanding votes favor Democrat Mary Peltola.
“The early vote is much, much, much more Democratic, and the Election Day vote is much more Republican,” he said. “And the Election Day vote, aside from those outstanding Bush precincts, have all been counted. So that's done. The Republicans are about as high as they're going to be.”
Sen. Sullivan’s campaign says the opposite. The campaign circulated a memo projecting a Sullivan victory — based in part on the fact that the 20,000 late-counted early votes between Oct. 30 and Nov. 3 were cast after the release of a New York Times investigation accusing Democrats of recruiting a same-name candidate and other potential spoilers. The Peltola campaign has denied involvement.
Of course, every Election Day vote was cast after the Times investigation, too.
5. Ballot Measure 2 is narrowly failing, while Ballot Measure 3 passes easily.
As in past elections, Alaskans appear closely divided on ranked choice voting, open primaries, and certain campaign disclosure rules that aim to illuminate large donors.
But results so far show Alaskans in favor of keeping the unique system. As of Nov. 4, “No” on Ballot Measure 2 led with 52% of the vote.
Moore said that’s a good sign for the ballot measure’s future, since he expects the outstanding vote to lean left, and Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents tend to favor ranked choice voting.
In 2024, the final results shifted substantially in support of “No” as additional ballots were counted, leading voters to ultimately reject that year’s attempt to repeal ranked choice voting by a slim margin.
Ballot Measure 3, which specifies that “only” U.S. citizens may vote in Alaska’s elections, is on track to pass easily with roughly 70% of voters in support.
6. The nation’s blue tsunami hits Alaska as a strong ripple.
The blue tsunami that slammed into the lower 48 was more like a strong ripple when it hit Alaska on Election Day. But the national blue bath will have a substantial impact here, too. For one thing, at least two of Alaska’s three-person congressional delegation will be in the minority. That makes it much harder to pass legislation. Also, with so much blame heaped on President Donald Trump for the GOP’s disastrous midterm results, congressional Republicans may be more likely to cross or disregard him. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski may have more Republican company when she votes against the Trump agenda.
