Alaska Senate Race Results: Mary Peltola vs Dan Sullivan and the Ranked-Choice Count

At 08:34 CET, Dan S. Sullivan led Mary Peltola in the Alaska Senate race by 2,470 votes, 48.7 to 47.5 percent with 66.1 percent of the expected vote counted, according to NBC News, based on AP data. No winner has been called. A Democrat has not won an Alaska Senate race since 2008. Almost all of Alaska's polls were set to close at 8 p.m. Alaska time on 3 November, which is 06:00 CET on 4 November, and ranked-choice rules apply: a candidate with more than 50 percent of first-choice votes wins outright, otherwise a ranked-choice tabulation follows on 18 November. Mary Peltola, a Democrat who represented Alaska in the US House from 2022 to 2025, challenges Senator Dan Sullivan, who is running for a third term.

Alaska Senate race: the key facts

• Status (08:34 CET): Sullivan 97,411 votes (48.7 percent), Peltola 94,941 (47.5 percent), 66.1 percent counted.
• How it is decided: more than 50 percent of first-choice votes wins outright, otherwise ranked-choice tabulation on 18 November, with 25 November as the target date for certification.
• Governor: Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins leads Bernadette Wilson 49.0 to 29.5 percent with 65 percent counted.
• 2024: Donald Trump won Alaska in 2024 with 184,458 votes to 140,026 for Kamala Harris, a margin of 13.1 points.
• Ranked-choice vote: Measure 2 on the same ballot would repeal the 2020 measure that brought ranked-choice voting and open primaries to Alaska state elections.
• Prediction market: Peltola 79.7 percent, Sullivan 21.6 percent on Polymarket (08:34 CET).

Alaska election results: read the early numbers with care

By type of vote, Peltola against Sullivan so far: mail ballots 57 to 41 percent, early in-person votes 57 to 41 percent, Election Day votes 44 to 52 percent. NBC News reports the Alaska count for the state's 40 House districts plus overseas absentee ballots. We estimate about 103,000 votes are still out, most of them in District 25, District 36, District 2. Under ranked-choice rules the early count is not the final word: absentee ballots mailed within the US can still arrive until 13 November and ballots mailed from abroad until 18 November, results until then show first-choice votes only, and the ranked-choice tabulation on 18 November applies if nobody passes 50 percent.

Alaska 2024 vs 2026: where the districts moved

District 4 (Greater Juneau) went from D+37.4 in the 2024 presidential race to D+53.9 now, with 67 percent counted. District 17 (Downtown Anchorage) went from D+33.5 in the 2024 presidential race to D+47.9 now, with 71 percent counted. District 27 (Wasilla area) went from R+56.2 in the 2024 presidential race to R+42.2 now, with 74 percent counted. District 31 (Downtown Fairbanks) went from R+3.4 in the 2024 presidential race to D+14.4 now, with 74 percent counted. Across the larger areas with at least half of the count in, the margin moved 12.6 points toward Democrats on average. The 2024 numbers are NBC's presidential results for the same 40 districts, matched by district number. These figures compare a partial Senate count with a full presidential count, so the final swing can still change in either direction.

Who are Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan?

Peltola is a former US representative who held Alaska's at-large House seat from 2022 to 2025. In the August primary she finished first with 49.5 percent, ahead of Sullivan with 41.4 percent, according to Wikipedia's race summary. Sullivan, a Republican, was first elected in 2014 and last re-elected in 2020. Two more candidates are on the general election ballot: Gerald Heikes, a Republican, and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher from Petersburg who is listed without a party and is not related to the senator. NBC News lists the senator as Dan S. Sullivan and the other candidate as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.

How ranked-choice voting works in Alaska

Voters rank the candidates in order of preference. Alaska Public Media reports that a candidate with more than 50 percent of first-choice votes wins outright. If nobody gets there, the tabulation on 18 November eliminates candidates from the bottom and moves their ballots to each voter's next choice until one candidate leads with a majority. The same ballot carries Measure 2, which would repeal the 2020 measure that introduced ranked-choice voting and open primaries in Alaska state elections.

Alaska governor's race

Alaska also elects a governor because Mike Dunleavy is term-limited. Four candidates are on the ballot: Republicans Dave Bronson, a former mayor of Anchorage, Treg Taylor, a former state attorney general, and Bernadette Wilson, plus Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state representative. The governor's race uses ranked-choice voting as well.

Alaska and crypto: the money in the Senate and House races

The money in this race came as direct contributions. Tech Influence Watch, the tracker formerly known as Follow the Crypto, lists $391,600 for Sullivan from Palantir, Jeff Yass, Andreessen Horowitz and nine other companies or their executives, against $28,676 for Peltola from Google, Coinbase, Galaxy Digital and one other company. The tracker lists no crypto or AI committee spending in the Senate race. Its only Alaska entry for committee money is the House: Defend American Jobs, the crypto committee in the Fairshake network, spent $508,142 in the primary for Representative Nick Begich.

The advocacy group Stand With Crypto scores Sullivan 100 and Peltola 98, a gap of two points, so by that measure the two are almost level. The next attempt at a market structure law makes the seat count anyway. The Senate did not take up the CLARITY Act on 15 September: the vote to begin debate failed 49 to 50, with no Democrat voting yes, and it needed 60 votes. Whoever holds the Alaska seat in January votes on the next attempt. Where the bill stands is in our CLARITY Act explainer.

What Alaska means for the Senate

Republicans went into the night with 53 seats, so Democrats needed a net gain of four for the majority. NBC News projects Democrats to control the Senate, with 54 seats for Democrats and 43 for Republicans at 08:34 CET. With the majority decided, the races still open decide the size of the margin, not who controls the chamber. All calls and the full Senate table are in our midterm results live ticker. More from the states: Nebraska and the $13.5 million against Dan Osborn, the Iowa Senate race and the biggest changes since 2024.

What Polymarket says about Alaska

Traders put Peltola at 79.7 percent and Sullivan at 21.6 percent at 08:34 CET, on a market with $3.9 million in volume. That shows what the market expects. Prediction markets can move quickly on early counts. If you hold coins through a week like this, compare regulated crypto exchanges and crypto brokers first. This article is not investment advice.