Mary Peltola’s Path to Winning Alaska Senate Race Outright - Newsweek

With thousands of votes still to be counted, Democrat Mary Peltola is within reach of an outright victory in Alaska’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, avoiding ranked-choice tabulation. But she faces a demanding threshold.

As of Friday morning, with 88 percent of votes counted, Peltola is leading with 125,157—or 49.2 percent—of all votes. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, the incumbent, trails her with 119,357—or 47 percent—of all votes.

Gerald Heikes, a drywall contractor running as a Republican, has 5,490—or 2.2 percent—of all votes. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is a retired teacher from Petersburg who has been accused of running to confuse voters and siphon votes away from the incumbent. He has 4,199—or 1.7 percent—of all votes.

Peltola is close to 50 percent, but with the race still so tight 10 days after Election Day, it is hard to tell whether the outstanding ballots will push her over the necessary mark. Alaska accepts domestic mail ballots postmarked by Election Day through November 13, while overseas ballots have until November 18 to arrive.

In a statement shared with Newsweek on Friday, Alaskans for Mary Campaign Manager, Cheryl Bruce, said: "As more ballots get counted, it’s clear that Mary’s victory is all but guaranteed, and Alaskans have resoundingly rejected Dan Sullivan’s D.C. self dealing.

"Mary won today’s ballot drop by a decisive margin, and remaining votes from Anchorage, Juneau, and rural Alaska will continue to break for Mary, continuing her momentum to the United States Senate.

"Alaskans are ready for a senator who fights to lower costs and take on D.C. corruption, and when every vote is counted, Mary will deliver for Alaska."

In 2020, a majority of Alaska voters chose to adopt the ranked-choice voting and a nonpartisan top-four primary system. That means that, in Alaska primaries, all candidates appear on a single ballot regardless of their political party. The four candidates with the most votes advance to the general election.

Under ranked-choice voting, Alaska voters can rank up to four candidates, but do not have to rank all four. If they vote for one candidate only, their vote stays with that candidate throughout tabulation.

If no candidate reaches an outright majority (50 percent plus one), the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed based on voters’ next choice. The process continues until one candidate has a majority.

In the event of a tie between two candidates with the fewest votes in a round, Alaska law resolves the tie "by lot" to determine which candidate is eliminated and which candidate advances to the next round. This means that the division’s director will flip a coin, draw a name or draw straws. The same solution is applied if there is a tie for the last two remaining candidates.

Peltola, an Alaska Native and former congresswoman, would need roughly 56 percent—or 19,445 first preferences—of an estimated 35,000 remaining votes to win an outright majority and avoid ranked-choice tabulation.

Many remaining ballots are in Peltola-friendly districts, while Sullivan’s strongest areas have largely been counted. In the Republican stronghold of Mat-Su, in southcentral Alaska, the incumbent suffered a setback this week. An analyst said the ballot count on Wednesday "was actually a very poor update for Sullivan."

Of the 5,578 additional votes reported, Sullivan added 2,836 to Peltola’s 2,561 to tighten his deficit to his Democratic rival to 3,975. Zachary Donnini, head of data science at VoteHub, suggested Sullivan would have expected to gain a larger share.

A subsequent update added another 5,678 Senate votes, with Peltola gaining a net 1,825 votes.

District 2 is particularly important. With only 68 percent of votes counted, it has the largest reported outstanding proportion among these seven districts.

In all other districts where Sullivan dominated the vote, over 90 percent of ballots have already been counted. Additionally, in District 36, where 75 percent of the votes have been counted, Peltola is leading by less than 1 percent, offering some hope to Sullivan to receive some votes from the area.

Heikes and Sullivan Jr. are currently pulling 3.9 percent of the vote combined; if they continue to take between 3 and 4 percent of the remaining ballots, Peltola has almost no margin for error. Crucially, Sullivan Jr.’s vote total is now smaller than Peltola’s lead.

President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to file a lawsuit last month over concerns about voter confusion involving the two Sullivans, seeking to block the certification of the race’s results if the number of votes cast for Sullivan Jr. could have changed the outcome.

A federal judge dismissed the case on November 1, but the Trump administration appealed. The president has continued calling the election in Alaska "rigged," demanding for Sullivan Jr.’s and Heikes’ votes to go to the incumbent.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday: "All votes going to the Fake Dan Sullivan, which was done solely for the purpose of fraud and confusion [this is unsubstantiated], should immediately be given to the Real Dan Sullivan (Senator!)—Likewise the votes of the second fraudulent candidate, also put up by the Dems."

Additional ballots are expected to be added to the vote count later on Friday. If they bring Peltola over the 50 percent mark, she will win the Senate race outright.

If not, officials will conduct ranked vote tabulations. The State of Alaska Division of Election said its target date for certifying the race’s result is November 25.

An analysis of possible outcomes for the Alaska Senate race released by nonpartisan organization FairVote Thursday did not win Peltola an outright majority. However, it found that she could win in the final round with 50.1 percent of the vote against Sullivan’s 49.9 percent, leading by 3,039 votes. FairVote's preliminary calculations did not include every ballot. It specifically noted that its cast-vote-record data did not fully correspond with the state's first-choice totals.

It is unclear how Sullivan and his allies would respond to a possible defeat. Michael Morley, a Florida State University law professor, previously told Newsweek that "if Senator Dan S. Sullivan loses, and Daniel J. Sullivan’s vote tally exceeds the margin of victory, then the senator’s best bet would be to file an election contest with the U.S. Senate, which is the sole judge of its members’ elections and returns."

Morley added: "The Senate can decide for itself whether to accept such results."

Newsweek contacted Sullivan’s campaign for comment by email on Friday morning and awaits a reply.