New Nov. 12 results put Kreiss-Tomkins just over 50% in Alaska governor's race

Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins moved just past 50% of first-choice votes in Alaska's governor race in new election results the state released Thursday evening, Nov. 12.

His ticket has 50.05%, 125 votes more than half of the 252,140 governor votes counted so far, in the Division of Elections' latest results. Under state law, a candidate with more than half of the first-round votes when counting ends wins without ranked-choice rounds. Republican Bernadette Wilson's ticket has 28.7%.

The update added about 5,700 ballots, nearly three-quarters of them from Southeast Alaska. The rest came from the House district that includes Kodiak, Cordova and Seward, and from the southern Kenai Peninsula. Kreiss-Tomkins won about 68% of the new governor votes.

About 32,000 ballots the division had accepted by Thursday afternoon weren't in the results yet, by Alaska News' count from the division's ballot report, and more absentee ballots can still arrive. To stay above 50%, Kreiss-Tomkins would need about 49.6% of the governor votes still to be counted. He won 45% of Wednesday's update, which was mostly absentee ballots from the Mat-Su area.

More than half of the uncounted ballots are from Anchorage, Eagle River and Chugiak. If each House district's uncounted ballots vote like the ballots already counted there, Kreiss-Tomkins would finish with about 51.6% of first-choice votes, by Alaska News' math. That's a scenario, not a forecast.

In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mary Peltola's lead over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan grew to 5,800 votes, up from 3,975 on Wednesday. She won about 65% of the new Senate votes and leads 49.1% to 46.8%.

If no one tops 50% once all the ballots are in, the race will go to a ranked-choice count scheduled for Nov. 18. On the updated ballot-level file the state posted Thursday, Peltola would finish about 4,900 votes ahead in that count on the ballots counted so far, using the same method as Alaska News' analysis. Sullivan would need roughly 56% to 58% of the remaining votes cast for him or Peltola to finish ahead in that count, depending on how many ballots are left.

Nonpartisan Bill Hill won about 56% of the new U.S. House votes, cutting Republican Rep. Nick Begich's lead to 18,781, down from 20,027. Begich leads 48.5% to 41.2%. On the ballots counted so far, he would still finish about 11,000 votes ahead of Hill in a ranked-choice count, by Alaska News' math.

On Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal Alaska's open primaries and ranked-choice general elections, "No" leads 52.8% to 47.2%, by about 13,700 votes.

Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive through Friday from inside the U.S., or through Nov. 18 from overseas.