Alaska

Alaska has no called winners at the top of the ballot. In our count Democrat Mary Peltola leads Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, 49.2% to 47.0%, for a Senate seat Republicans hold. Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins leads Republican Bernadette Wilson by 21.4 points for the governor’s office, held now by Republican Mike Dunleavy. He is one of four candidates, and the other three are Republicans, Alaska Public Media reported.^{1, 2} For the state’s single U.S. House seat, Republican Rep. Nick Begich III is ahead of Bill Hill, 48.6% to 41.2%.²

Trump carried Alaska by 13.2 points in 2024, and two years later a Democrat is ahead in the races for Senate and governor. These are ranked-choice contests, the leaders’ first-choice shares are still changing as ballots arrive, and there is no final margin yet.³ The comparison with the presidential vote below uses the first choices counted so far. The ballots counted so far in the Senate race, the most-voted contest, come to 75% of the 2024 presidential total and 96% of the 2022 midterm’s.

Our count sets the first choices for Peltola and Sullivan in the Senate race against the 2024 presidential vote in each of Alaska’s 40 state House districts. Counted so far, the statewide margin has moved 15.4 points, from R+13.2 to D+2.2. Peltola drew 89 first-choice votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won, and Sullivan 65 for every 100 of Donald Trump’s. Peltola is ahead in nine districts that voted for Trump, no district moved toward the Republicans, and Sullivan still leads in 15 of the 40. The race moved her way as the count went on: in the November 12 results she had 49% to his 46.8%, Alaska Public Media reported.²

House District 11, the largest of those nine districts, went from R+2.2 to D+1.8 on 7,353 votes. The widest swings came in House District 38 and House District 39, which Harris had carried by about a dozen points and where Peltola now leads by 60.8 and 54.7. House District 37 went from R+6.5 to D+27.5; that is the open seat Edgmon left to run for the Senate, which the Alaska Beacon named in early results as a possible Republican gain in the state House.⁴ The three districts that cast the most votes all moved toward Peltola. House District 8 went from R+49.7 to R+40.0 and House District 25 from R+35.5 to R+20.3, while House District 9, which Harris carried by 2.4 points, gives Peltola a lead of 6.3.

The Legislature is organized by caucus, and both chambers will again be run by bipartisan coalitions, with new leaders. Sen. Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican, takes over as Senate president from the retiring Gary Stevens, and Rep. Calvin Schrage, an Anchorage independent, becomes House speaker in place of Bryce Edgmon, who ran for the Senate.⁵ The Senate coalition had 14 of 20 members before the election. On November 13 it counted 11, after three Republicans signaled they would leave, and that figure assumes wins by Edgmon and Louise Stutes in races they led that had not been called. That would leave nine of the 20 senators outside it. In the House, where 21 seats make a majority, 20 had been called for the bipartisan caucus and six for the Republican caucus, with 14 outstanding.^{1, 4}

Giessel listed affordability, access to jobs, energy and education as her priorities. “I’ve had brief conversations with Governor-elect Kreiss-Tomkins, and he seems to be completely aligned with ... the focus of the Senate bipartisan coalition,” she told Alaska’s News Source in a story published November 12, using a title the count has not yet given him. Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, one of the Republicans leaving the coalition and the one described as the next minority leader, said in a written statement that Senate leadership was assembling the most liberal majority possible.¹ The Alaska Beacon’s James Brooks told Alaska Public Media that the coalitions and Kreiss-Tomkins have said they are interested in funding education ahead of time, and that he would look for the return of a bill reviving a state pension for public employees and teachers, which passed this year and was vetoed by Dunleavy.⁵

A veto will be hard to override whoever is governor. The constitution has the two chambers meet in joint session: bills to raise revenue and appropriation bills become law over a veto by three-fourths of the membership of the Legislature, 45 of 60, and other bills by two-thirds, 40 of 60. No caucus is reported to hold that many seats. With one U.S. House seat, Alaska draws only legislative maps, and a five-member Redistricting Board does it: the governor appoints two members, and the Senate president, the House speaker and the chief justice one each. Elections are administered by the lieutenant governor, who is elected on the governor’s ticket.⁶ The Senate president and the House speaker will both be new in January, and so will the governor, whoever wins.⁵

A statewide question on the ballot is not settled either. Ballot Measure 2 would repeal Alaska’s voting system. An initiative is enacted if a majority of the votes cast on it favor it, under the state constitution.⁶ In the results released on November 12 the measure had slipped further behind, with “No” at 53% of the vote, Alaska Public Media reported.²

What has held so far is the shape of the Legislature and the Republican lead for the U.S. House seat. Both chambers were run by bipartisan coalitions before the election and will be again, Alaska Public Media reported.⁵ Begich leads by 7.4 points in our count for a seat his party holds. In the state House, the Alaska Beacon identified one district as a possible Republican gain in the early results: the open District 37 seat that Edgmon left to run for the Senate, pending the ranked-choice tabulation.⁴ In our count no seat that either party held has yet been called for it.

Lisa Murkowski’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028; she is a Republican in a state that voted Republican by 13.2 points for president in 2024 and where this year’s Senate race is not yet decided. The constitution bars anyone elected governor to two full successive terms from holding the office again until a full term has intervened.⁶ The next governor will also have a hand in the next maps. The Redistricting Board is appointed in the year of each census, by September 1, and the governor names two of its five members; the next census year is 2030.⁶

The last ballots are counted on November 18, the deadline for ballots sent from overseas, and races without a majority are tabulated by ranking then. Officials plan to certify by November 25, and a recount must be requested within five days of certification, Alaska Public Media reported before the election.^{2, 3} Kreiss-Tomkins has declared victory. “Alaskans voted for change and for a government that works across party lines to move Alaska forward,” he said in a statement. The Associated Press had not called the race when Alaska Public Media reported the November 12 results.²