The State of Play in Alaska's Senate Race: What Happens Next?

Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication to remove the portion discussing ballot curing, as that applies to municipal rather than statewide elections. We apologize to our readers for this error.

Alaska's an odd place, politically, and boy, howdy, this 2026 midterm election hasn't made the Great Land any less odd. We've had the issue of the dueling Dan Sullivans addling our election with a long-handled spoon, very likely egged on by Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola. Ranked choice voting (RCV) has caused even more problems, and looks likely to go on doing so. 

So, where are we now, and what happens next? First, let's look at what Alaska election the nation is looking at, it seems, the most: The Senate race.

Right now, as I write this, Democrat Mary Peltola is holding a narrow lead, 102,578 votes for 48.15 percent, while the incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) has 102,071 votes, for 47.9 percent. The two also-rans are the other Dan Sullivan, who wags have aptly named Decoy Dan, has 3,582 votes (1.68 percent) and Republican Gerald Heikes has 4,820 votes (2.26 percent). That appears to be a small lead for Mrs. Peltola — but it may only appear that way. 500 votes is in no way an impossible hurdle to overcome. Here's why.

Alaska continues to accept absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day for up to 10 days afterward, or 15 days for ballots mailed from overseas, due to the historic fact that some ballots come in from some pretty remote areas, and some from military members, who tend to skew Republican; possibly more so for Senator Sullivan, who served in the Marines.

Now here's where the incumbent may squeak by. Neither candidate has, as of this writing, passed the 50 percent threshold for an outright win. Assuming that remains the case, and assuming that Alaskans ranked the red, it moves into a ranked-choice tabulation, in which the candidate with the lowest vote count (Decoy Dan) drops off and any second-choice votes from Decoy Dan voters go to that second choice, which, in the case of confused voters, may be Sen. Dan Sullivan, or in the case of deliberate voters, may go to Mary Peltola. Here's hoping that the former case is the prevalent one. But in this case, we just won't know until we know. We can presume, though, that Heikes voters may be more likely to second-choice the incumbent; but that's just a presumption.

Problem is, the second round won't happen for some time yet. And if there was ever an election that rates the term "too close to call," this is it.

Another interesting thing that may have helped Mary Peltola shows up on the map at the link; she performed very well in the remote areas, where there are a large percentage of Native voters. Mary being of Native extraction herself may have helped her on those areas, although the remote villages and towns tend to vote Democrat in most elections, along with Anchorage and the panhandle; these are normally offset by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and east-central Alaska, but this year, that may not have been enough.

The other Alaska news is that we will almost certainly have a Democrat governor for the next four years, thanks to RCV giving us three Republicans on the ticket against one Democrat, and the propensity for voters in the RCV system to "bullet vote," or just vote for their top pick, instead of ranking the other candidates. Also, RCV itself looks like it's going to vex us for some time to come, as the recall measure seems to have failed, and by a wider margin this time. 

The good news (and we'll take all the good news we can get) is that our at-large Republican Congressman, Nick Begich III (AK-At Large) looks a safe bet to be returning to the House. That's good; Nick has been doing great work for Alaska. 

So, yes, this morning we're waking up to a rather different Alaska, but it will be some time yet before we know just how different it will be.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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