Why Mary Peltola is on track to win in Alaska, even if ranked choice ballots come into play

详细摘要

The Democratic Senate candidate could still win an outright majority. She also has an advantage in voters’ second-choice ballots, according to an NBC News Decision Desk analysis.

As Alaska continues to count and report votes weeks after Election Day, it is increasingly unlikely that Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan will hang on to his job.

His Democratic challenger, Mary Peltola, is on track to win the still-unresolved Senate race under either possible scenario — with an outright majority, or if the race goes to ranked choice ballots, according to an NBC News Decision Desk analysis of outstanding and tabulated votes.

Peltola currently leads Sullivan by 3.7 percentage points, or just over 10,000 votes. With 96% of the expected vote in, NBC News’ Decision Desk now believes Peltola is likely to win this race, though we may need to wait until Wednesday, Nov. 18, to know the final result.

If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote, Alaska determines a winner using ranked choice voting, in which the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated one by one and their votes are redistributed according to each voter’s ranked preferences. If a voter did not rank the remaining candidates, their ballots are considered “exhausted” and are excluded from the final vote count.

Wednesday is Alaska’s deadline for final mail absentee ballots to be received by election officials, one reason why this close race has lingered for so long. Alaska reports its votes unevenly, and NBC News expects to receive the remainder of these votes early next week.

Nov. 18 is also the day the state Division of Elections would run the ranked choice tabulation, if needed.

If Peltola receives over 50% of the vote, she will win the election without needing to go through the ranked choice tabulation process. She needs to win just 53.8% of the remaining ballots to clear this mark — a real possibility given her strength in recent vote reports. On Friday night, she received 58% of the newly reported votes.

Sullivan, the incumbent, has two separate paths to gain ground and win the election: making up the gap with first-choice rankings, or making up the gap via the ranked choice process.

The first…

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