Republican Senator Dan Sullivan still has a chance to hold Alaska’s Senate seat after Democrat Mary Peltola suffered a courtroom defeat, although the latest ballot count increased the challenge facing the incumbent. Neither candidate had secured a majority in Thursday’s reported results. Outstanding ballots and a possible ranked-choice runoff could determine whether Sullivan survives the closely contested race against the former Democratic congresswoman.
The legal fight arose after Peltola’s campaign sued Alaska election officials on November 6th, seeking the names of absentee voters whose ballots had been rejected and the reasons for those decisions. State attorneys opposed producing the information while counting continued. They argued that the requested records were preliminary, contained confidential voter information, and couldn’t feasibly be prepared for release on short notice.
Meanwhile, the four-candidate Senate contest remained unsettled more than a week after the November 3rd election. Alongside Peltola and the incumbent, voters could select Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. or Gerald Heikes. Because Alaska allows voters to rank candidates, supporters of those trailing contenders could still influence the final result through their subsequent preferences if neither leading candidate wins an outright majority of first-choice votes.
Thursday’s update put Peltola ahead by approximately 5,800 votes, with 49% of the vote compared with Sullivan’s 46.8%, Alaska Public Media reported. The new batch added 5,723 early, absentee and questioned ballots, primarily from Southeast Alaska. That reversed the direction of Wednesday’s count, which had narrowed the gap to 3,975 votes. The Thursday report put the estimated share of ballots still outstanding at 12%.
In the records case, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews sided with the state on November 11th, the Alaska Beacon reported. Matthews pointed to the Division of Elections’ workload and rejected the demand for a new report during ballot processing. “Even if the request were otherwise considered reasonable outside the peak election time of year, it is simply not reasonable or required now,” he wrote.
Sullivan’s campaign was permitted to intervene in the proceedings, according to Trending Politics’ report. His electoral path still depends on the remaining count and voters’ rankings. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-finishing candidate is eliminated, and ballots transfer to the next available ranked choice. That process can move votes to Sullivan or Peltola according to the preferences voters actually marked.
See Alaska’s News Source’s coverage of the unresolved Senate race here:
"*" indicates required fields
Sullivan’s campaign emphasized the unfinished count in a Wednesday email that Alaska’s News Source quoted: “With tens of thousands of ballots still to be counted, there’s a long way to go before every Alaskan’s voice is heard.” The station reported that Sullivan had returned to Washington. Both campaigns were awaiting further results, and neither candidate had granted the station’s interview requests since election night.
Absentee ballots undergo review at regional election offices, where bipartisan teams check voter eligibility and whether ballots were properly cast. Campaign observers can challenge decisions to accept or reject ballots, with final determinations made by the State Review Board. Overseas ballots have until November 18th to arrive. Certification is scheduled for November 25th, and decisions on rejected ballots can change until that process is completed.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.