In state races, new Alaska absentee ballot counts push trailing Democrats ahead - Alaska Public Media News

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A voting sign at Anchorage’s Hanshew Middle School on Election Day. (Jeff Chen/Alaska Public Media)

A number of Alaska Democratic legislative candidates made up ground on their opponents Tuesday, as election officials released long-awaited tallies of roughly one-third of the estimated 150,000 ballots that remained uncounted.

A citizen’s initiative to overhaul Alaska’s elections, Ballot Measure 2, also gained ground in Tuesday’s count, while the races for president, U.S. House and U.S. Senate appeared increasingly likely to go to Republicans.

Alaska’s uncounted ballots are mostly absentees, but they also include early votes and provisional ballots that are cast when poll workers have questions about a voter’s eligibility. The state’s decision to delay counting for a week after Election Day — which officials said was needed to protect against double-voting — has prompted confusion, speculation and impatience both inside Alaska and nationally.

Here’s why Alaska is the slowest in the country when it comes to vote-counting

The roughly 50,000 ballots counted Tuesday shifted an array of races, including the one for Ballot Measure 2.

The election initiative would replace party-specific primary elections with a single race in which the top four candidates advance and institute a system of ranked-choice voting for the general election. It trailed by 24,000 votes after Election Night, and Tuesday’s count sliced that margin to less than 16,000. If the remaining uncounted ballots follow the same trend — which is not guaranteed — the initiative will win.

That’s not the case for Alyse Galvin and Al Gross, the Democratic Party-endorsed independent candidates that are, respectively, challenging U.S. Rep. Don Young and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, both Republicans.

Young and Sullivan held huge leads after Election Night, and while Galvin and Gross made up ground in Tuesday’s count, the incumbent Republicans will come out ahead if the remaining uncounted ballots follow the same trend.

Read full election coverage from Alaska Public Media

Gross trailed by some 58,000 votes after Election Night, and had about 32% of votes to Sullivan’s 62%, but he still maintained that he would win the race. After Tuesday’s count of roughly one-third of the remaining ballots, Gross had only closed about one-tenth of the gap, leaving him some 53,000 votes behind.

Galvin, meanwhile, trailed by 50,000 votes after Election Night, and reduced that gap to 44,000 on Tuesday. And Republican President Donald Trump saw his lead over Democrat Joe Biden shrink from 55,000 votes to 48,000. Both Galvin and Biden would have to win a substantially larger share of the remaining votes to claim victory.

A torrent of Democratic absentee ballots could reverse Election Night vote counts

Among the legislative races that flipped in Tuesday’s count: Longtime East Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski pulled ahead of his Republican challenger, Madeleine Gaiser, moving from 121 votes behind to nearly 2,000 votes ahead.

Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski (Skip Gray/360 North)

In Fairbanks, two House Democratic incumbents who trailed after Election Night counts, Grier Hopkins and Adam Wool, both pulled ahead of their GOP challengers. Hopkins now leads Keith Kurber by 450 votes, or roughly 5%, while Wool leads Kevin McKinley by 150 votes, or 2%.

In the race for the East Anchorage state House seat currently held by Republican Gabrielle LeDoux, Republican David Nelson, who beat LeDoux in the GOP primary, now leads Democrat Lyn Franks by just 150 votes, or some 3.5%. That’s down from a 400-vote lead Nelson had at the start of the day.

In another East Anchorage state House race, Democratic Rep. Ivy Spohnholz pulled ahead of Republican Paul Bauer by nearly 1,000 votes, after trailing by 350 in the initial count.

With more than 100,000 ballots still to count, Alaska campaigns cross fingers and crunch numbers

West Anchorage Democratic Rep. Matt Claman also pulled far ahead of his Republican challenger, Lynette Largent, who trailed by just 50 votes after Election Night. And Democratic Rep. Chris Tuck, who represents a Midtown and South Anchorage district, pulled ahead of Republican Kathy Henslee, who led by more than 500 votes after Election Night.

And in the race for the House seat representing part of the Anchorage Hillside, Democratic Party-endorsed independent Calvin Schrage, who trailed Republican Rep. Mel Gillis by 800 votes after Election Night, pulled within 175 votes, or some 2%.

In other legislative races, meanwhile, state officials did not count any additional votes Tuesday; additional tallies are expected later Tuesday evening and later this week.

In the races that did flip, a Democratic surge was expected, as progressive groups and campaigns pushed supporters to vote absentee ballots — which the state did not start counting until Tuesday.

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In state races, new Alaska absentee ballot counts push trailing Democrats ahead - Alaska Public Media News
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