Nov. 11 results trim Peltola's Senate lead to 3,975 as Mat-Su ballots come in

New election results the state released Wednesday evening, Nov. 11, trimmed Democrat Mary Peltola's lead over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan to 3,975 votes, down from 4,250 in Tuesday's results.

The update added about 5,600 ballots. About 5,000 were absentee ballots from the six House districts that cover the Mat-Su, which also take in Valdez and the Denali Borough. Sullivan won about 51% of the new Senate votes, to Peltola's 46%. Peltola won about three-quarters of the roughly 600 ballots added from rural western Alaska.

Peltola still leads 48.7% to 47.1% in the Division of Elections' latest results. If no one tops 50% once all the ballots are in, the race will be decided in a ranked-choice count on Nov. 18. On the updated ballot-level file the state posted with the results, Peltola would finish about 3,000 votes ahead in that count on the ballots counted so far, using the same method as Alaska News' analysis.

In the governor's race, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins' ticket slipped to 49.6%. On the ballots counted so far, he's 888 votes short of a majority, up from 621 on Tuesday. Republican Bernadette Wilson's ticket has 28.9%.

Republican Rep. Nick Begich's lead over nonpartisan Bill Hill in the U.S. House race grew to about 20,000 votes, 48.9% to 40.8%.

On Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal Alaska's open primaries and ranked-choice general elections, "No" still leads 52.5% to 47.5%, by about 11,800 votes.

The state's ballot report Tuesday showed about 5,400 uncounted ballots in those Mat-Su-area districts, and Wednesday's update added about 5,000 from them. It added none from Anchorage or Southeast Alaska, which had about 16,500 and 9,000 uncounted ballots as of Tuesday, by Alaska News' count.

More than 30,000 ballots the state has received still aren't in the results, by Alaska News' estimate. Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive through Friday, or through Nov. 18 from overseas.