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This article is developing and will be updated. 

Early vote counting in Alaska’s statewide, top-four primary election showed no surprises in the state’s two federal races.

For U.S. Senate, Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan and Democratic challenger Mary Peltola led a 16-candidate field with 324 of 403 precincts reporting results as of 12 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Peltola had 47.8% of the votes counted to that point, while Sullivan had 43.3%. Republican challenger Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg was in third with 2.5%, and Democratic candidate David Leslie was in fourth with 1.1%, only slightly ahead of Republican Gerald Heikes. 

In the U.S. House race, which had 15 candidates, incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich III had 46.2% of the votes counted by 12 a.m., while independent challenger Bill Hill had 31.1%. Democrat Matt Schultz, who suspended his campaign in July to back Hill, had 8.1%, and federal inmate Eric Hafner, a Democratic candidate, had 3.8%. 

National Democrats have focused on Alaska’s federal races as they attempt to win control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections. National Republicans are also spending heavily to defend the incumbents. Control of the House and Senate depend on a relative handful of seats nationally, and Alaska’s delegation could be a decisive factor. 

Vote-counting is expected to continue through Aug. 28, the deadline for mailed absentee ballots to reach the Alaska Division of Elections.

Candidates who finish in the top four may also withdraw from the election until Aug. 31. If a candidate withdraws, their position is taken by the fifth-place finisher. If two candidates withdraw, the sixth-place finisher is also promoted. 

While Peltola and Begich appeared to be on course to win the most primary-election votes, primary success doesn’t always mean success in the November general election. 

Two years ago, then-incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola earned almost 51% of the vote during that year’s pick-one primary, outpacing all Republican candidates combined. In the general election, the result flipped and Begich III defeated Peltola.

After the polls closed Tuesday night, Sullivan joined supporters at a campaign event at the Alaska Aviation Museum in Anchorage. He expressed gratitude for the support and touted his record in the Senate.  

He pointed to shepherding federal funds to Alaska for the U.S. Coast Guard, military, and oil and gas development in the North Slope, as well as supporting tax cuts enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“I am proud of my record as your U.S. Senator,” he said. “When I ran in 2014, I talked about getting big things done, historic things done, for our state, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

While Sullivan did not mention President Donald Trump by name, he praised the success of Republican policies. 

“D.C. Democrats don’t have an agenda or a vision for Alaska. They have a target on Alaska, and we’re not going to let them do it,” he said. 

Sullivan criticized campaign spending from outside of Alaska to support his main challenger, Peltola. 

“My opponent, the Democrat, she’s got unlimited money from Lower 48 billionaires and millionaires, and, you know, who the hell ever,” he said. “We don’t have that money, right? But we got you, and we’re going to win the general election with you.”

Across town, Peltola supporters gathered at a campaign event at a downtown Anchorage brewery, where she arrived just after 9 p.m. to applause from the crowd. She began by acknowledging she worked well with her opponent, Sullivan, when she served as Alaska’s sole U.S. House Representative, but said he was no longer working for Alaskans.

She cited his support of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which fired federal employees, and his votes to defund public media and support the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid over the next decade. 

“We have tens of thousands of Alaskans who can no longer afford health insurance, and we are getting crushed by corporate greed,” she said. “Dan Sullivan, every single vote, votes along with corporate greed. He is there for every fat cat in the nation.”

Peltola criticized the overrepresentation of millionaires and billionaires in Congress. “Half of Congress does not reflect their electorate. This has to change. We’ve got to get working people, regular people, in worrying about regular people,” she said.

She thanked her supporters and some 10,000 volunteers for her campaign and said the focus now is on the general election.

“I am so glad that the primary is now behind us. It’s a real campaign now. We are really in this,” she said. “There’s still 77 days left till November 3, and we are now in 5th gear overdrive.”

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This article is developing and will be updated. 

Democratic governor candidates Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Tom Begich, and Republican candidates Bernadette Wilson and Dave Bronson led in early vote counting for Alaska’s Tuesday primary election for governor.

Seventeen people, including two Democrats, 12 Republicans and three independents, are seeking to replace Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who is term-limited and unable to run again this year.

As of 12 a.m. Wednesday, with 324 of 402 precincts reporting results from election day, Kreiss-Tomkins had 21.8% of the vote, Begich had 20%, Wilson had 10.6% and Bronson had 8.5%.

The first candidate outside the top four was Republican Treg Taylor, with 7.5%, followed by Republican Click Bishop, with 7%.

Ballot-counting is expected to continue through Aug. 28, the deadline for mailed absentee ballots to reach the Alaska Division of Elections.

Candidates who finish in the top four have until Aug. 31 to decide whether they will remain in the race or withdraw. In 2022 and 2024, several high-finishing candidates have withdrawn from statewide races in order to consolidate party support, and the leading governor candidates have said that they are considering their options.

Kreiss-Tomkins, 37, would be the youngest governor in Alaska history if elected in November and has campaigned as a progressive Democrat.

“Today, Alaskans took the first huge step in choosing a new direction for our state,” he said in a written statement Tuesday night.

Begich, a former state senator, has likewise run as a progressive Democrat. He is the son of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, brother of former Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich and the uncle of current Republican U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III.

Wilson, a businesswoman from Anchorage, has been active in statewide Republican politics for decades but never before as a candidate. An opponent of the state’s existing open-primary/ranked-choice general election system, she has offered a platform similar to that of incumbent Gov. Dunleavy.

Bronson is a former mayor of Anchorage whose sole term was marred by repeated controversies and scandals before he was voted out of office. He has likewise offered a platform similar to Dunleavy. 

While the two Democratic candidates are almost certain to finish with the highest vote tally in the primary, success in the primary doesn’t always signify a win in November. 

Two years ago, incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola earned almost 51% of the vote during that year’s pick-one primary for U.S. House, outpacing all Republican candidates combined. In the general election, the result flipped and Republican challenger Nick Begich III defeated Peltola.

On Tuesday, the combined vote total of Begich and Kreiss-Tomkins appeared on track to be less than 50% of all votes cast. 

Voter turnout appeared to be high; with only 60% of precincts reporting results, participation was already above the 2024 primary and inching toward the near-record turnout of 2022, when the primary coincided with a special election to fill out the term of U.S. Rep. Don Young, who had died in the spring. 

As of Tuesday morning, voters had returned only 47% of the 21,266 absentee ballots that were sent out, indicating that thousands more ballots are likely to be added to the tally in coming days.

In the 2024 primary, 86% of absentee ballots were returned, and in the 2022 primary, almost 98% were returned.

Ahead of the election, President Donald Trump had sought to ban states from counting absentee ballots received after election day. 

The Dunleavy administration did not oppose the Trump order in court, but other states did, and the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the president’s move for now.

In addition to the absentee ballots, there were 25,407 early votes, cast in person at 10 locations on the Railbelt, in Juneau and in Nome, between Aug. 3 and Aug. 17. 

Only early votes cast through Aug. 13 were included in the election day count; ballots cast during the final five days of early voting are sequestered by the division to prevent double voting. 

While the number of Alaskans casting ballots at early voting centers set a primary-election record, most votes this year came on election day, at more than 400 polling places spread across the state.

In Anchorage, candidates stood on street corners, waving signs alongside supporters — and competed for space with their opponents.

At one point, Begich — a Democrat — stood on a corner opposite from U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III, his nephew and a Republican.

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At least two polling stations in rural Alaska opened late for the Tuesday statewide primary election, the Alaska Division of Elections confirmed late Tuesday, and observers independently reported other sites also opened late.

The problem was most acute in the southwestern village of Nunapitchuk, where bad weather grounded flights and kept elections workers from opening a polling place until 5 p.m. That gave local voters only three hours to vote before the scheduled 8 p.m. close.

Nunapitchuk has 343 registered voters, mostly independents. 

In the North Slope village of Point Lay, polls opened at 8 a.m., one hour later than scheduled.

Michelle Sparck is director of Get Out The Native Vote and has been working for months to help recruit local poll workers. 

Late Tuesday, she said polls in the North Slope village of Wainwright didn’t open until 4 p.m. due to staffing issues, and Anaktuvuk Pass in the central Brooks Range had similar problems, with the city mayor temporarily stepping in. 

The Division of Elections did not respond to a question seeking to verify Sparck’s report.

Tuesday’s issues followed a warning from the Alaska Federation of Natives and other groups.

The groups issued a public letter saying they were “deeply concerned by reports of significant vacancies among election workers in rural Alaska precincts, as well as reports that some election workers have waited for months to receive per diem following required election training.”

The letter called for the Division of Elections to take additional steps to ensure that rural polling locations were open on time before the primary. 

Earlier this year, the Alaska Legislature passed a bipartisan, bicameral election reform bill that would have mandated some actions to improve rural voting access. 

Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed that bill, and the Legislature failed to override the veto after two Republicans from Southeast Alaska reversed themselves and voted to sustain the veto after voting to pass the bill. 

Even with late openings in places across the state, the Division of Elections appeared to perform better in rural Alaska than it did in the 2024 and 2022 primaries. 

Two years ago, polling stations failed to open at all in Wales and Kaktovik for the primary election, and polling places in several other locations failed to open on time. 

In 2022, polling places in the southwest villages of Tununak and Atmautluak failed to open for the primary election, and a lack of poll workers meant two other communities could only vote by absentee ballot.

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