Alaska’s razor-thin Senate race took another dramatic turn Wednesday as Democrat Mary Peltola suffered a courtroom defeat before watching her already narrow lead over Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan shrink in the latest ballot count.
The double setback comes as Alaska remains home to the nation’s final undecided Senate contest, with thousands of ballots still awaiting processing and the outcome potentially hinging on the state’s controversial ranked-choice voting system.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews rejected Peltola’s attempt to obtain detailed records identifying rejected absentee ballots, siding with state election officials who argued that fulfilling the request would interfere with their ongoing responsibilities.
The judge described the campaign’s demand as “simply not reasonable” while election workers continue processing ballots from the Nov. 3 midterms.
Matthews pointed to the enormous workload facing the Alaska Division of Elections, which is still sorting through ballots more than a week after Election Day.
The agency is “currently busy processing ballots from the 2026 general election” and “simply lacks the capacity to generate the report” requested by Peltola’s campaign, the judge determined.
“Even if the request were otherwise considered reasonable outside the peak election time of year, it is simply not reasonable nor required right now,” Matthews wrote.
He added that “the timing of the Campaign’s request could simply not be worse.”
Peltola’s campaign filed the lawsuit last week, seeking access to information identifying absentee ballots flagged for rejection and the reasons election officials considered them invalid.
Her attorneys argued that the information would improve transparency and help the campaign understand how election officials were handling disputed ballots.
Campaign attorney Abha Kelly maintained that the counting process was “going incredibly smoothly” and insisted the request was not intended to disrupt election operations.
Kelly argued that the campaign was seeking to consolidate information already available to election observers rather than obtain confidential voter records.
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But attorneys representing the state pushed back, citing privacy concerns and the burden of producing a customized report during an active election count.
“Voters have a privacy interest in that because people who want to vote absentee presumably don’t want to mess it up and don’t want to be publicly exposed as having messed that up,” Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton-Walsh argued.
Matthews ultimately agreed with the state’s position, emphasizing that the dispute concerned access to election records rather than the legitimacy of the election results.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the judge stressed that the case was “not about who won or lost the election.”
Dan Sullivan‘s campaign was permitted to intervene in the legal proceedings, giving the Republican incumbent a role in the fight over the requested records.
Meanwhile, Wednesday night’s updated vote totals delivered another setback for Peltola.
With approximately 86% of the expected vote counted and more than 248,000 ballots tallied, the former Democratic congresswoman held 121,487 first-choice votes, or 48.9%.
Sullivan trailed with 117,512 votes, representing 47.3% of the total.
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That leaves Peltola ahead by just 3,975 votes, a margin that has narrowed as additional ballots have been counted.
Neither candidate has secured an outright majority, meaning the contest remains on track for another round of tabulation under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system.
And that is where the race could become even more unpredictable.
Two additional candidates remain on the ballot, with Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. receiving 4,100 first-choice votes and Gerald Heikes collecting 5,426.
Combined, those candidates have attracted more than twice the number of votes separating Mary Peltola and the Republican incumbent.
Under Alaska‘s ranked-choice system, voters can rank candidates by preference. If nobody receives a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-performing candidates are eliminated and their ballots are redistributed according to voters’ next available choices.
That means Sullivan could potentially overcome Peltola’s lead depending on how supporters of the other candidates ranked their preferences.
However, the final outcome remains uncertain until outstanding ballots are processed and the ranked-choice tabulation is completed.
The election has also been overshadowed by allegations involving a purported effort to recruit spoiler candidates, including the controversy surrounding Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., whose similar name has drawn scrutiny.
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Peltola has denied knowing about the alleged scheme, while the Republican incumbent has publicly challenged her account.
Those allegations remain separate from Wednesday’s court ruling, which addressed the campaign’s records request rather than any accusation of election misconduct.
Alaska voters are also weighing whether to eliminate ranked-choice voting altogether.
A ballot measure seeking to repeal the system was trailing 52.5% to 47.5% as counting continued, leaving another major election question unresolved.
Election officials expect absentee ballot processing to continue until approximately Nov. 18, with certification scheduled for Nov. 25.
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