Begich declares victory in Alaska’s U.S. House race as ballot counting continues

Republican Nick Begich III declared victory Saturday in the race for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat over incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola. In the latest count of ballots posted Saturday, he maintained his lead over Peltola by more than two percentage points, with around 9,000 ballots left to be counted. The winner will likely be determined by a ranked choice tabulation.

The Alaska Division of Elections released the results from 17,000 ballots late Friday and an additional 7,000 ballots on Saturday, which shrank the gap between Begich and Peltola, a Democrat. But Begich remained in the lead by 2.6 percentage points, or more than 8,300 votes.

Meanwhile, results on a ballot measure that sought to repeal Alaska’s open primaries and ranked choice voting system continued to tighten. With more than 328,000 ballots counted, 50.1% of voters were in favor of the repeal, while 49.9% of voters wanted to keep the current voting system. Supporters and opponents of the ballot measure are separated by just 895 votes.

As additional absentee ballot counts have been announced, the gap between the camps has shrunk, signaling that the ballot measure — whether it succeeds or fails — will do so only by a razor-thin margin. The Division of Elections is set to count the remaining 9,000 ballots by Wednesday.

In Alaska’s U.S. House race, Begich had 48.7% of votes counted as of Saturday evening, while Peltola had 46.1%. If the leader in the race received less than 50% of votes, the final result will be determined by a ranked choice tabulation.

Alaska Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe garnered more than 3.9% of the vote. Democrat Eric Hafner had 1% of the vote. In a tabulation, which is scheduled to take place Wednesday, Howe and Hafner will be eliminated and their supporters’ second-choice preferences will be taken into account. The process is also referred to as an instant runoff.

“The path forward begins with a unified understanding of what Alaska can do for the rest of our nation. Together, we will deliver results for Alaska, creating long-term jobs, protecting our way of life, and playing our part to put America back on track,” Begich said in a social media post Saturday morning. “Alaska’s resources are not only a blessing for the people of our state — they are vital to the strength and independence of our entire nation.“

Peltola has not commented on results since Election Day. Peltola’s campaign spokesperson Anton McParland said Saturday that the campaign planned to release a statement on Tuesday.

The ballots counted Friday include more than 1,100 early votes cast before Election Day, around 9,000 absentee votes that were delivered by mail, and nearly 7,000 questioned ballots, which are often cast when a voter’s registration is not up-to-date or by voters who cast ballots in polling locations outside their designated precinct. On Saturday, election workers counted an additional nearly 6,000 absentee voters, and almost 1,000 questioned ballots. Alaska law allows the Division of Elections to count absentee ballots from in-state voters as long as they arrived by Friday.

Election results were posted Friday after 6:30 p.m. Beecher blamed the late hour on power outages in Juneau and Nome, where division offices are located. Additional results were posted Saturday shortly before 5 p.m.

President-elect Donald Trump is easily winning the state with 54.8% of votes counted so far. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has just over 41.1% of the vote. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was tapped by Trump to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, had 1.65% of the vote in Alaska.

Members of the Alaska House have already announced plans to form a new majority coalition that will bring together a group of Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans to control the chamber, in a flip from the current mostly-Republican majority. But one of the presumed members of the coalition is in a precarious position that grew even more uncertain with the latest round of results.

Democratic incumbent Rep. Cliff Groh, who represents a North Anchorage district, was leading Republican David Nelson by only 10 votes after the Friday vote tally. Additional votes could come in the race as absentee ballots are counted.

The latest ballot count did not significantly change the results in any other legislative races. The outcomes in a handful of legislative seats will not be known until ranked choice ballots are tabulated.