Two Democrats and two Republicans are poised to face off this November in the race for governor after primary voting wrapped up on Tuesday. And it looks like there’ll be two Dan Sullivans and a Mary Peltola in the race for U.S. Senate.
But the dust is still settling. Though all but three of Alaska’s 403 precincts had reported results by Thursday evening, thousands of early, absentee and questioned ballots remain to be counted.
For instance, early votes from the four days prior to the election aren’t included in counts until a week later, according to the Division of Elections. And only about half of the roughly 18,000 absentee ballots issued to Alaskans have come back to election officials. Absentee ballots had to be postmarked by August 18, primary day, but can arrive at election offices and be counted up to 10 days later.
But in the meantime, here are some takeaways from the primary races.
- In the governor’s race, the ‘final four’ isn’t final.
It’s no secret that the top candidates are talking to each other about how to best consolidate voters behind them.
For now, those discussions are preliminary as candidates wait for the many outstanding ballots to be returned, said Democratic candidate Tom Begich. As of Thursday, Begich was roughly 2,000 votes behind fellow Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who was in first place.
“My goal is for us to wait until all the ballots come in before, you know, we see where it's all going,” Begich said.
Which candidate ultimately ends up in fifth place could wind up making a difference, Begich said. Conservative former Attorney General Treg Taylor led former Sen. Click Bishop, a moderate Republican, by fewer than 300 votes as of Thursday afternoon in the race for fifth place.
Republican Dave Bronson, who was in fourth place and poised to advance, said in a statement that he, too, wanted to wait until all votes were counted. As of Thursday, he was roughly 2,700 votes behind top Republican vote-getter and third-place candidate Bernadette Wilson, who previously called on other Republicans to withdraw if they were not the top candidate from their party.
“We’ve been clear from the beginning that every Alaskan’s voice deserves to be heard, and we’re going to let that process play out,” he said.
- Mary Peltola has a sizable lead in the U.S. Senate race but that might not hold for the general election.
Democrat Mary Peltola’s lead in the U.S. Senate primary is substantial. She’s more than five percentage points ahead of Sen. Dan Sullivan, and she could pull further ahead of the Republican as thousands of absentee and early-voted ballots are counted.
This bodes well for her in November. But the general election could go in a very different direction. When she was defending her U.S. House seat in 2024 against Republican challenger Nick Begich III, Peltola actually got more than half the vote in the primary and still lost in November.
Voters who turn out for a primary are typically more partisan and engaged than those who show up for a general. But Democrats are so fired up now that they may have boosted turnout beyond all Alaska norms. It’s not clear that will hold for the general, when a lot more voters will show up, including nonpartisans and less motivated voters of all stripes.
- Money isn’t everything. But it helps.
The top vote-getter in the governor’s race, Kreiss-Tomkins, was also the top fundraiser. His campaign raked in more than $2.3 million, and he spent most of it, according to records filed with campaign regulators.
Then again, other top fundraisers placed outside the top four.
Podiatrist and first-time Republican candidate Matt Heilala contributed roughly $1.5 million to his own campaign — more money than some candidates in the top four raised altogether — and received less than 3% of the vote.
“If I wasn't able to spend a considerable amount of money, (it) would have been zero, I think,” he said.
Reached by phone Thursday as he peeled Heilala-Sumner decals off his RV, Heilala said he saw self-funding as his only realistic shot of winning a statewide race as a first-time candidate.
“You're just not going to have donors that are going to be stepping out of the shadows offering you $100,000 because they're playing the game of who's electable,” Heilala said. “The unknown person is right out of the gate less electable because just not enough people know who you are.”
Republican Treg Taylor placed fifth despite raising $1.7 million — including $300,000 in contributions to his own campaign just days before the election, an apparent violation of state law. (Taylor’s campaign told the Alaska Beacon he viewed the pre-election self-funding limit as unconstitutional, though it remains in effect.)
- Voters don’t like that money helps.
More than 70% of voters favored Ballot Measure 1, which would limit individuals’ campaign contributions to $2,000 per candidate in a state race each election cycle. Alaska currently has no limit on individual donations to state candidates thanks to a 2021 court ruling.
That’s no surprise, said Calvin Schrage, an independent state representative from Anchorage who was one of the ballot measure’s main sponsors. A ballot measure setting the prior limits — $500 per candidate per year — passed by a similarly lopsided margin in 2006.
“We've known all along that Alaskans have consistently, throughout our state's history, supported low campaign contribution limits, and we were very confident that Alaskans would once again come out and express that strong support,” Schrage said.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill the Legislature passed this year that would have imposed identical limits.
