Analysis: Peltola would narrowly win a ranked-choice final round on the count, so far

On the ballots counted so far, Democrat Mary Peltola would narrowly beat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in a final ranked-choice round in Alaska's U.S. Senate race, with about 50.7% of the vote, an Alaska News analysis of updated state ballot data shows. About 40,000 ballots are still uncounted.

Peltola has 48.8% of first-choice votes in the Division of Elections' latest report, released Tuesday evening, and leads by 4,250 votes. Sullivan, who won the seat in 2014 and was reelected in 2020, has 47.0%. Republican Gerald Heikes has 2.2%, and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who shares the senator's name, has 1.7%.

Peltola has won about 56% of the early votes and 59% of the absentee votes counted so far, to Sullivan's 42% and 39%. Sullivan won 50% of Election Day votes, to Peltola's 45%.

Tuesday night, the division also posted an updated ballot-level file. It records how each ballot was marked, without identifying voters, and covers most but not all of the ballots counted so far. In it, about 55% of the ballots that ranked Peltola or Sullivan first marked no other choice. Among those that listed a second choice, ballots that ranked Peltola first most often picked Sullivan Jr., and those that ranked the senator first most often picked Heikes.

Ballots that ranked Heikes or Sullivan Jr. first were more likely to list backup choices. About 36% of them marked no other choice. The second choices on Sullivan Jr.'s ballots were split: 29% picked Peltola, 17% Heikes and 16% the senator.

Alaska News ran the ranked-choice rounds on that file and applied its rankings to the full preliminary count, the same method it used in its earlier analyses of the Senate, governor's and House races. Sullivan Jr., in last place, would be eliminated after write-ins. About 29% of his ballots would move to Peltola, 18% to Heikes and 16% to Sullivan, and about 37% would stop counting.

That would leave Peltola with about 49.7% of the votes still counting, short of a majority. Heikes would be eliminated next. About 44% of the ballots that ranked him first would end up with Sullivan and 17% with Peltola, and the rest would stop counting. On the current count, that would give Peltola about 50.7% in the final round, a lead of about 3,300 votes.

That's a reversal from Alaska News' first analysis, on Nov. 4, which found Sullivan would finish about 330 votes ahead. Since then, the count has grown by about 30,000 ballots, and Peltola has won about 54% of the Senate votes added.

Sullivan comes out about 970 votes ahead on the transfers. Heikes drew more first-choice votes than Sullivan Jr., and his ballots leaned more heavily toward the senator than Sullivan Jr.'s leaned toward Peltola. Even if every ballot missing from the file that ranked Heikes, Sullivan Jr. or a write-in first ended up with Sullivan, Peltola would still finish more than 2,500 votes ahead on the count so far.

That is not a final result. About 40,000 ballots the division has accepted aren’t in the results yet, by Alaska News’ count from the division’s ballot reports.. Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day can still arrive through Friday from inside the U.S. and through Nov. 18 from overseas.

By Alaska News’ math, Peltola would clear 50% outright, with no ranked-choice count, if she wins about 57% of the votes still to be counted. That mark ranges from about 56% to 58%, depending on whether 50,000 or 35,000 ballots remain.

Below that, the count would go to ranked-choice rounds. Sullivan would finish ahead in the final round only if he won about 54% or more of the remaining votes cast for him or Peltola. That's more than his share of the early, absentee or Election Day votes counted so far. The 1,500 questioned ballots counted so far favored him more heavily, but all came from the Mat-Su and the central Kenai Peninsula.

About 5,400 questioned ballots from elsewhere haven't been counted. The 54% mark ranges from about 53% to 55%, depending on whether 35,000 or 50,000 ballots remain.

If the uncounted ballots split like the early and absentee ballots counted so far, Peltola would lead the final round by roughly 8,500 to 10,700 votes. Alaska News also split them district by district. If each state House district's uncounted ballots split like its counted ballots of the same kind, with questioned ballots split like Election Day votes, Peltola would finish with just over half of first-choice votes, enough to win without a ranked-choice count.

In that scenario, Anchorage's uncounted ballots would give Peltola about 5,200 more votes than Sullivan and Southeast Alaska's about 2,800 more, while the Mat-Su's would give Sullivan about 1,600 more. Those are scenarios, not a forecast.

The ballot-level file doesn't include ballots counted only by hand, the division says. That leaves out the Election Day ballots from 116 mostly rural precincts, including Kotzebue, Dillingham and Unalakleet. Voters there favored Peltola, about 6,400 votes to Sullivan's 2,400. The file covers 235,561 of the 245,470 ballots cast in the Senate race, and applying its rankings to the full count assumes the voters missing from it ranked the candidates the same way.

The ranked-choice count for races without a majority is scheduled for Nov. 18. Alaska's last U.S. Senate race, in 2022, went to a ranked-choice count. Sen. Lisa Murkowski had 43.4% of first-choice votes and finished with 53.7% after the other candidates were eliminated.