NBC Says Mary Peltola Is Likely to Win Alaska Senate Race
Alaska, US
Kerry Tasker/Reuters
Source Analysis
What Happened
What Happened
Timeline
November 14, 2026
Outstanding ballots and comeback math: With roughly 12,000 votes potentially outstanding (about 4% of the total), analysts calculated that Sullivan would need to win an improbably high share (around 92–93%) of those or net about 10,400 redistributed ballots to tie; Peltola led by roughly 3.7 points (just over 10,000 votes), and ballot exhaustion further shrinks the pool available to close the gap.
November 14, 2026
Peltola expands lead; likely win: Former Rep. Mary Peltola steadily expanded her narrow lead as new batches of votes were reported, and the NBC News Decision Desk characterized her as "likely" to win the Alaska Senate race once about 96% of the expected vote was in. She also received a strong share of recently reported ballots (about 58% on Friday night).
November 13, 2026
Mail ballot receipt deadline: Alaska rules let mail ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted as long as they arrived by November 13, with a few extra days allowed for valid overseas ballots. This deadline helps explain why counting continued after Election Day.
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Source Analysis
Timeline
November 14, 2026
Outstanding ballots and comeback math: With roughly 12,000 votes potentially outstanding (about 4% of the total), analysts calculated that Sullivan would need to win an improbably high share (around 92–93%) of those or net about 10,400 redistributed ballots to tie; Peltola led by roughly 3.7 points (just over 10,000 votes), and ballot exhaustion further shrinks the pool available to close the gap.
November 14, 2026
Peltola expands lead; likely win: Former Rep. Mary Peltola steadily expanded her narrow lead as new batches of votes were reported, and the NBC News Decision Desk characterized her as "likely" to win the Alaska Senate race once about 96% of the expected vote was in. She also received a strong share of recently reported ballots (about 58% on Friday night).
November 13, 2026
Mail ballot receipt deadline: Alaska rules let mail ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted as long as they arrived by November 13, with a few extra days allowed for valid overseas ballots. This deadline helps explain why counting continued after Election Day.
