As Democrats celebrated congressional and gubernatorial victories around the country Tuesday night, voters on the central Kenai Peninsula show the region remains red.
Early results show central Kenai Peninsula precincts went overwhelmingly to incumbents U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, and gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson – all Republicans.
Begich currently leads the statewide race to renew his seat in the U.S. House with 49% of votes. Sullivan and challenger Mary Peltola are neck-and-neck as of Wednesday at 2:19 a.m. with about 48% of votes each. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins currently leads the race for Alaska governor with 49% of the statewide vote.
Results from the Alaska Division of Elections are still preliminary and unofficial. The results so far do not include all absentee and early votes.
Statewide races use ranked-choice voting, which requires a candidate to receive a majority of votes before being declared a winner. If no candidate initially receives more than 50% of the vote, the race’s lowest vote-getter is eliminated and their second-choice votes are redistributed. Ranked choice votes will be tabulated Nov. 18.
State election officials plan to publish more results on Nov. 10 and to certify the election by Nov. 25.
Alaska governor
In the race for Alaska governor, Republican Bernadette Wilson received 41.3% of the vote in State House District 7, which covers Kenai and Soldotna. Wilson performed strongest in the district’s Kalifornsky Beach precinct, where she received 47.6% of votes cast.
Wilson performed better in House District 8, which includes Sterling, Nikiski, Hope, Cooper Landing and Bear Creek. Across the district’s 11 precincts, she received about 49% of all votes cast there. In that district, she saw the most support from the Salamatof precinct, where she received almost 60% of votes.
Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins clinched roughly a third of votes cast in House District 7, and a little more than a quarter of votes in House District 8. He’s trailed by Republican and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, and then by Republican Treg Taylor in both districts.
U.S. Senate
In the closely watched race for one of Alaska’s two seats in the U.S. Senate, Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan far outperformed former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola in local precincts.
Sullivan received more than 62% of votes cast in House District 7 and more than 70% of votes cast in House District 8. He performed strongest in District 7’s Kalifornsky Beach precinct, with more than 71% of votes there, and in District 8’s Salamatof precinct with more than 81% of votes.
Peltola clinched almost a third of votes in House District 7, reporting stronger support from early and absentee votes, compared to in person ballots. Peltola got about a quarter of the votes cast in House District 8, where she saw a 52 percentage point difference between her most and least supportive precincts.
Early results show Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg received less than one percent of votes in House District 8 and about 2.62% in House District 7. Petersburg Sullivan’s candidacy is under state and federal investigation.
Statewide, Peltola holds a slight lead over the incumbent Sullivan. The race has received intense attention as national Democrats seek to reclaim the U.S. Senate, though early results show that will happen regardless of the outcome in Alaska.
U.S. House of Representatives
Incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich III is outperforming Independent challenger Bill Hill both statewide and on the Kenai Peninsula.
In House District 7, Begich has received almost 65% of votes cast, compared to roughly 27% received by Hill. The other two candidates Libertarian James McDermott and Democrat Eric Hafner raked in about 8% of the vote combined.
Begich clinched about 70% of the votes cast in House District 8, with seven of the district’s 11 precincts going more than 70% to Begich. Hill received about 23% of votes in that district. Hafner and McDermott received around 6.6% of the vote combined.
