By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 26, 2026 – Mary Peltola has moved to nearly 49% of the vote in Alaska’s U.S. Senate primary as the Division of Elections added thousands of ballots to its unofficial results Wednesday morning.
The latest count, released at 9:28 a.m., includes 156,535 ballots and reports results from 401 of Alaska’s 403 precincts. Statewide turnout now stands at 26%.
Peltola, a Democrat and former member of Congress, leads the Senate field with 76,119 votes, or 48.9%.
Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan has 65,468 votes, or 42.1%. Peltola’s lead over Sullivan stands at 10,651 votes.
The remaining candidates collectively account for about 9% of the vote.
Analysts believe that Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the leading Democrat candidate for governor, has been driving up the Democrat turnout in the primary, which would explain the surge of support for Peltola, who served for one term in the US House and came away with nothing to show for her time in office.
Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., the Chicago-area candidate whose similar name has drawn scrutiny, remains a distant third with 3,829 votes, or 2.5%.
Democrat David Leslie has moved back ahead of Republican Gerald Heikes in the close contest for fourth place. Leslie has 1,710 votes, while Heikes has 1,667 — a difference of just 43 votes. Those two have been trading places for the fourth seat on the November ballot.
Under Alaska’s top-four primary system, the four candidates receiving the most votes advance to the November general election. If the present order holds, Peltola, Sen. Sullivan, Daniel Sullivan Jr. and Leslie would advance.
In the race for Alaska’s lone seat in the US House, Republican incumbent Nick Begich continues to lead comfortably.
Begich has 69,113 votes, or 45.3%. Nonpartisan candidate Bill Hill is second with 48,981 votes, or 32.1%.
Democrat Matt Schultz, who withdrew from the race after the primary, remains in third place with 12,236 votes, or 8%. Democrat Eric Hafner, the prisoner in New York, is fourth with 5,757 votes, or 3.8%.
Democrat John Williams follows with 4,063 votes, or 2.7%, while Republican Clay Strickland has 3,471 votes, or 2.3%.
The latest results also reveal a striking difference in participation among Alaska’s 40 state House districts.
House District 9 recorded both the largest number of ballots and the highest turnout rate. The district cast 6,533 ballots from 16,313 registered voters, for turnout of approximately 40%.
At the other end of the scale, House District 18 reported only 932 ballots from 11,444 registered voters — turnout of just 8.1%. That means District 9’s participation rate was nearly five times that of District 18.
The results remain unofficial. Absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day may be accepted through Aug. 28, and the Division of Elections is scheduled to certify the primary results Aug. 31.
The full morning results are available from the Alaska Division of Elections.
The Alaska Story’s separate report on the governor’s race results is linked below:
Latest Alaska primary count solidifies top-four fields for governor, US Senate and House
One thought on “Peltola approaches 49% as Alaska adds thousands of primary ballots”
The support for Peltola will only increase if Senator Sullivan isn’t able to deter President Trumps insane tariff war with our neighbor Canada. As if the price of fuel and groceries weren’t bad enough already. Ted Stevens wouldn’t have allowed this without loud pushback. So far crickets from Senator Dan S. Sullivan.