The campaign of Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola has sued Alaska election officials, seeking the immediate release of records identifying absentee ballots rejected in Tuesday’s vote, as the state’s uncalled Senate race heads towards a weeks-long finish in court as well as at the ballot box.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday, 6 November, according to reports, and seeks records that identify the absentee ballots rejected in the election. Peltola and Republican Senator Dan Sullivan remain locked in a close contest, with about 600 votes separating them on Friday evening tallies from the Associated Press and Decision Desk HQ.
In the Associated Press count, Peltola leads with 102,962 first-choice votes, or 48.2%, to Sullivan’s 102,325, or 47.9% — a lead of 637 votes with an estimated 74% of ballots counted. Neither candidate holds the 50% first-choice majority required to win outright under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system.
A race that will take weeks
Alaska will accept ballots up to 18 November, and the Division of Elections plans further count updates on 10 and 13 November, with certification targeted for 25 November. The ranked-choice tabulation, which will decide the seat if no candidate reaches a majority, is scheduled for 18 November.
The race has an unusual complication: a third candidate also named Dan Sullivan — retired Petersburg teacher Dan J. Sullivan, who has no party affiliation — has won about 3,600 votes, or 1.7%, more than five times the gap between the two leaders. The New York Times reported that his candidacy was the result of a Democratic recruitment operation, and the Justice Department is pursuing a lawsuit to block election certification if Senator Sullivan loses, pending an investigation into whether votes that went to the other Sullivan were cast by mistake.
Two seats decide the Senate margin
The undecided races in Alaska and Mississippi will decide whether Democrats expand their 54-seat Senate majority. Democrats have already won control of the Senate, with seven Republican-held seats falling in the midterms, but the final size of their majority remains to be seen. Peltola has called the pace of the count “Alaska normal”, noting that the state’s system requires a candidate to reach 50% before a winner is declared.
Peltola, a centrist who served one term in the US House from 2022 to 2025, is challenging Sullivan, a two-term incumbent first elected in 2014. The two have traded the lead since election night, when Sullivan led by 1,677 votes before Peltola overtook him as later ballots were counted.
