New Alaska Vote Total Pushes Peltola Further Ahead

The latest update from Alaska has Democrat Mary Peltola ahead by more than 4,200 votes in the race to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.

Peltola is up to 118,926 votes, ahead of Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-Alaska). Sullivan is at 114,676 votes after the Nov. 10 update from the Alaska Division of Elections. In a previous update, Peltola led by 2,517 votes.

The gap between the candidates now exceeds the number of votes for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., whom Republicans allege entered the race at the behest of Democrats to draw votes away from Sen. Sullivan.

Sullivan Jr. has 4,027 votes in the latest tally.

“Alaskans are fed up with high costs and corruption stemming from DC, and they have made their voices heard: after every vote is counted, it is clear that Mary Peltola will be elected Alaska’s next United States Senator,” Cheryl Bruce, Peltola’s campaign manager, said in a Nov. 10 statement.

Sen. Sullivan has not issued a statement recently, and his campaign did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.

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The new total represents ballots from 401 of the 403 precincts, according to the Alaska Division of Elections.

The system lets voters rank candidates in order of preference, or place one candidate as their first choice, another as their second choice, and so on.

If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes in the first round of counting, the system holds additional rounds until a candidate reaches a majority. In each additional round, the candidate ranked last is eliminated, and ballots that listed that candidate first are shifted to the next highest-ranked candidate in contention.

Peltola has 49 percent of the vote, and Sen. Sullivan has 47.2 percent so far.

Democrats and independents who caucus with the Democrats will have at least 54 Senate seats in the next Congress after flipping multiple seats in the midterms. Republicans will have at least 44.

The other race yet to be called is in Mississippi, where Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican, is trailing Democratic prosecutor Scott Colom by 2,990 votes.

Colom said in a briefing on Tuesday that he’s confident he will prevail in the race as state officials continue processing ballots.

Hyde-Smith told reporters in Washington, “We’re still counting votes, and there’s a few thousand out, and we feel confident.”

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said Tuesday that roughly 2,323 outstanding absentee ballots have not come in yet.

He said officials had been processing affidavit ballots, including ballots from people who forgot their identification. Many counties are still working on sending his office verified election results, he added.