Democrat Mary Peltola has widened her lead to nearly 10,000 votes over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska's U.S. Senate race, the last high-profile congressional contest of the 2026 midterms still to be called, according to the latest unofficial results.
The latest count puts Peltola at 49.84 percent of the vote, just short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright under Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, and about 10,000 votes ahead of Sullivan, USA Today reported on Saturday. The Associated Press estimates that about 96 percent of expected ballots have been counted.
Friday's ballot release added roughly 22,500 votes and widened Peltola's advantage. The latest published first-choice count gives the former congresswoman 138,240 votes, or 49.8 percent, against 127,828 votes, or 46.1 percent, for the two-term Republican incumbent.
"There is no mathematical path for Sullivan to win this race," Peltola's campaign wrote in a social media post late on Friday. "When the remaining votes are counted, Mary will decisively be elected as Alaska's next United States Senator."
If no candidate tops 50 percent of first-choice votes, Alaska will proceed to a ranked-choice tabulation on November 18, eliminating the lowest-performing candidates and redistributing their supporters' second choices. The state aims to certify the results on November 25.
The outcome will determine whether Democrats hold a 56-seat majority in the Senate or the party split sits at 55-45. Democrats have flipped eight seats so far in the midterms — in Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Texas — and Alaska could give them a ninth win.
The Alaska governor's race was called on Saturday, with Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins winning the seat held by a term-limited Republican governor, the first Democratic governor of Alaska since 1998.
