Perhaps no race in America better captures the strange, high-stakes uncertainty of this election cycle than Alaska’s U.S. Senate contest. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll, released on Sunday, shows Democrat Mary Peltola still leading Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, but the margin is far narrower than it was just a month ago. Peltola now sits at 48 percent among 610 likely voters, with Sullivan close behind at 46 percent. The poll, conducted between October 23 and November 1, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points, meaning the race is essentially a toss-up. Less than half of one percent of respondents said they would vote for either of the two other candidates on the ballot—Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a namesake challenger whose candidacy has become a lightning rod for controversy, and Gerald “Jerry” Heikes. Another 6 percent said they were still undecided. The new numbers mark a clear shift from the previous Times/Siena survey released in early October, which gave Peltola a commanding 50-to-43 lead. That earlier poll, taken among 504 likely voters, had its own margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points. But the trajectory is unmistakable: Peltola still leads, but the ground underneath her has shifted, and the race has become far more complicated than it once appeared. For a state where no Democrat has won a U.S. Senate seat since 2008, and where Donald Trump handily carried the state in the last three presidential elections, the fact that Peltola is competitive at all is remarkable. Democrats have poured hope and resources into this race as part of their broader push to take back the Senate, and for a while the polls made that dream look plausible. Now, with the election just days away, the question is whether the controversies that have swirled around Peltola’s campaign will cost her the seat at the last moment.
The most damaging development has been the saga of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher and fishing enthusiast who shares the name of the Republican incumbent. A former Peltola staffer told the New York Times that Democrats had recruited Sullivan Jr. to run as a spoiler, hoping to siphon votes away from Senator Sullivan in Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system. Peltola has denied any knowledge of the plan, and her campaign dismissed the allegations as a distraction. But the story landed with force, in part because it was the second time this cycle that Peltola’s operation came under scrutiny. Earlier in the fall, the Times reported allegations from former congressional and campaign staffers who described abusive and volatile behavior by Peltola, using slurs and maintaining a hostile work environment. Her team pushed back on those claims as well, but the cumulative effect has been to put the Democratic candidate on the defensive. Sullivan, who had been trailing in the polls and struggling to respond to attacks over his stock trades, financial disclosures, and support of data centers, suddenly found a new line of attack. His campaign embraced the allegations and turned them into advertisements, painting Peltola as dishonest and unstable. The polls suggest the strategy may be working. A Data for Progress poll from mid-October had Peltola at 49 percent to Sullivan’s 46 percent in the first round, and 51-to-49 in a head-to-head runoff. An InsiderAdvantage poll around the same time showed Peltola with 48 percent to Sullivan’s 43 percent before ranked-choice reallocation, narrowing to 50-to-48 in the final round. All of this points to the same conclusion: Peltola’s lead has been shrinking for weeks, and the namesake controversy may have accelerated that trend. Whether it derails her entirely remains the central question of the final days.
The legal dimension of the controversy added another layer of chaos. The Trump administration’s Justice Department filed an unusual lawsuit last month seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate results if Senator Sullivan lost, arguing that the presence of a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot would have confused voters and drawn valid votes away from the incumbent. The federal government later amended the suit to incorporate the Times reporting about the alleged recruitment effort. Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee moved to dismiss the case, accusing the administration of using the unresolved issue to lay the groundwork for an unlawful challenge to a potential Peltola victory. They described the lawsuit as meritless and called it a distraction from its own weak legal claims. On Sunday, Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court in Alaska agreed with them. In her ruling, she concluded that the federal government offered no workable remedy and, importantly, failed to explain how its request to segregate ballots and investigate voters’ intent could be implemented without destroying the secrecy of the ballot. The Justice Department said it plans to appeal, but the practical effect of the ruling is that the legal obstacle has been removed before Election Day. Still, the entire episode has hung over the race, and experts say it may have done real damage to Peltola’s political brand. She has carefully cultivated an image as a consensus-building Alaskan who puts the state ahead of partisan games, with ads using phrases like “forget politics” and “no politics.” The allegation that her team would engage in such a bare-knuckled political trick cuts against that image in a fundamental way, and the timing could not have been worse.
Political scientists in Alaska have been watching these developments with a mix of concern and fascination. Forrest Nabors, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, told Newsweek that Peltola still has a good chance of winning, but that her chances are waning. Until recently, he expected her to win a close race. Now, he is no longer sure. He believes the controversy undercuts the central argument of her campaign: that Senator Sullivan is corrupt and that she is the fair, Alaska-first alternative. The effects may not show up fully in the polls until after election day, but the story is still reaching low-information voters as they make their final decisions. Nabors pointed out that when the last story about Peltola’s alleged abusive behavior broke, only about 20 percent of expected voters had cast ballots. If even 2 percent of undecided voters move to Sullivan because of these stories, he said, Sullivan wins. Russell Luke, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, offered a slightly different read. He believes Peltola still has a solid chance, pointing out that the most recent polls put her ahead and that the race is rated as a toss-up across the board. Luke thinks the allegations about her alleged behavior did not have a tremendous impact, in part because voters may have moved on and in part because the issues of the campaign—especially the economy—remain more important. But he acknowledged that the namesake story, arriving closer to election day, could have a greater effect. Luke also emphasized that Alaska voters are deeply concerned about affordability, the price of fuel, and the cost of heating their homes this winter. Swing voters, he argued, will likely cast their ballots for whichever candidate they believe is most likely to deliver better economic conditions.
The stakes of this race go far beyond Alaska. The state is one of the Republican-held Senate seats that Democrats are hoping to flip in their quest for control of the upper chamber. Republicans currently hold a 53-to-47 majority, and Democrats need to win four seats to flip the chamber. Recent Times/Siena polling has shown Democratic candidates ahead in a number of key states, including Michigan, Texas, Maine, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska, and Iowa, but many of those leads are narrow and far outside the margin of error. Close polling, of course, is not a prediction of final results. Nabors and Luke both warned that polls can miss late shifts and that the actual outcome could be very different. Sullivan, for his part, has not made any obvious missteps that would explain his vulnerability. He is the incumbent, with a voting record that largely aligns with Alaskan preferences. But he has generally voted with the Republican Party line in the Senate, and many Alaskans are angry or disaffected with the party, associating it and President Trump with the high cost of living and the ongoing war in Iran. Luke suggested that Alaskans may take out their frustrations on Sullivan as the most visible Republican symbol in Washington, while embracing Peltola, who has been careful to express strong support for Alaska’s oil industry. That matters because more than 60 percent of registered voters in Alaska are undeclared, nonpartisan, or independent. The state’s reputation as ruby red has been driven in part by Democratic opposition to oil and climate change measures, which many Alaskans see as an attack on their economy. Peltola, a former congresswoman, had a fairly good record on oil issues in the House and has reaffirmed her support for the industry this cycle. There is also a libertarian streak in Alaska that emphasizes self-reliance and independence, and those values can cut in either direction. The race could very well come down to which candidate does a better job convincing swing voters that they are the one who can bring down costs and protect Alaska’s way of life.
Whoever wins, the country may have to wait a while to find out. Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means that unless one candidate secures an outright majority on election night—which appears unlikely given the presence of two minor candidates—the race will move to a ranked-choice tabulation that takes place fifteen days after the election. Russell Luke was blunt about this reality: he said it is highly unlikely that anyone will know the winner on election night, and that the rest of the country may have to wait on Alaska to learn the fate of the Senate. That waiting period could be tense, especially if the national balance of power hinges on the outcome. The judge’s dismissal of the Trump administration’s lawsuit removes one potential avenue for legal challenge, but the possibility of an appeal and post-election litigation remains. In the meantime, both campaigns are urging their supporters to vote, and Election Day will likely see a flood of ballots from Alaskans who have been bombarded with accusations, counterattacks, and dramatic claims. The race has become a strange combination of national politics and local concerns, with the personalities of the candidates, the peculiarities of Alaska’s voting system, and the broader national mood all colliding. What seemed like a promising opportunity for Democrats just a few weeks ago now looks genuinely uncertain. Peltola may still prevail, and she remains narrowly ahead. But the arc of the campaign suggests that nothing is settled, and the final result could surprise everyone—or keep the country waiting for answers for days. In a race this close, with so much at stake, the only safe prediction is that Alaska will be at the center of the political world on election night and beyond.
