The 2026 Alaska Senate race: Dan Sullivan vs. Mary Peltola

Alaska's November Senate ballot includes four candidates, including both Dan Sullivans and Mary Peltola, with ranked-choice voting used in the general election.^[13][14] Sullivan and Peltola both advanced in August,^[15] and after more ballots were counted, Peltola led the incumbent by more than eight percentage points. The second Dan Sullivan remained a wild card in the ranked-choice general election.^[14] The incumbent won the endorsement of a third Dan Sullivan, former Anchorage Mayor Dan A. Sullivan.^[13]

Peltola kept her distance from national Democrats and faced questions about her record. She turned away an unsolicited fundraising appeal on her behalf from former Vice President Kamala Harris, and her campaign said she was not seeking endorsements from anyone in the Lower 48.^[16] In August, records showed she had missed 794 of 4,265 votes in the Alaska House during her terms there from 1999 to 2009.^[17] In September, a New York Times report described former staffers' allegations that she berated aides, used slurs and shoved an employee. Peltola pushed back against allegations of staff mistreatment during the October debate.^[18][19]

At the end of September, President Donald Trump announced a roughly $54 billion South Korean investment in a project to export natural gas from Alaska. South Korea disputed his account, saying investment depended on the project proving economically feasible.^[20]

In October, Trump made an unusual campaign trip to Alaska, holding a rally for Sullivan in Wasilla.^[21][22] He urged Alaskans to vote for the "real" Dan Sullivan, called the other Sullivan's campaign a Democratic hoax and said his administration was looking into allegations that the candidate had coordinated with a liberal group.^[22] Days later, Sullivan and Peltola met in a televised debate, clashing over the Iran war and trading digs on consumer prices.^[19] In late October, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of the race if the Republican narrowly loses, arguing that the second Sullivan's candidacy confused voters.^[23] Peltola called the suit "frivolous" and said, "This is clearly corruption."^[6] With about a week to go, both leading candidates courted Alaska Native voters, a key constituency.^[24]

The second Sullivan became the race's central dispute in its final week. After the New York Times report, Trump called for Peltola to be prosecuted,^[25] and the administration investigated her campaign's reported involvement.^[26] The FBI contacted donors to Dan J. Sullivan in Petersburg, his hometown, where nobody had seen him for weeks.^[27][28] CNN separately reported that another little-known candidate on the ballot pointed toward a secretive effort to hurt Republicans.^[29] The Justice Department revised its lawsuit and asked to isolate ballots, saying it wanted to preserve them, not change votes or declare a winner, before the judge dismissed the case.^[30][31][4] Sullivan said he would accept the results whether or not he won.^[4]

The count was expected to take time. CNN reported that the race could be slow and controversial to decide,^[32] and some right-wing media figures suggested the Senate should refuse to seat Peltola if she won, Media Matters reported.^[33] Former staffers also alleged that she had used a racial slur in a 2024 incident, the New York Post reported, an allegation she was fighting.^[34] Peltola and her family had suffered minor injuries in a car crash on the way to a campaign stop in late October.^[35]

Counting went on after election day, with any ranked-choice tabulation set for November 18.^[36] Trump claimed the race was over with about a quarter of the votes uncounted and Peltola ahead,^[37] then called for a "fair solution" as a federal appeals court weighed the Justice Department's lawsuit.^[38] By November 10, Peltola led by 2,517 first-choice votes.^[3] Her campaign sued the state for a list of absentee ballots that election officials had rejected,^[39] and on November 11 a state judge ruled the request "not reasonable."^[40] The Daily Signal reported that at least 90 ballots had been thrown out because voters marked both Dan Sullivans as their first choice.^[41]