Alaska governor gives vote count update in ‘very close’ Senate race

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) provided an update on the Last Frontier’s closely watched Senate race as vote counting continues.

“It’s very close,” the Alaska Republican said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on WABC radio, giving an update on what lies ahead in the process.

He said that there is a “big batch” of votes coming in next week on Nov. 13, followed by a “smaller batch” on Nov. 15. The final count will happen on Nov. 25.

The batch next week “will really determine who’s going to have the lead there because, right now … candidate Peltola is up by just I think a couple of hundred votes,” said Dunleavy, who was term-limited and could not seek reelection this year. The gubernatorial race to replace him remains uncalled.

“If nobody reaches 50 percent, that’s when they go through the ranking process in which the other candidates, the ones that have the least votes, they fall off and their votes are redistributed in the manner by which people rank them,” the governor added.

“We’re still in the process of bringing in votes and counting votes and we are in the midst of investigations to determine if there was any wrongdoing, especially anything that might resemble perjury or a misrepresentation of individuals’ intent on how they want their candidacy to be placed on the ballot,” Dunleavy said.

Alaska and Mississippi are the two states with remaining uncalled Senate contests.

The Senate race in Alaska between Democrat Mary Peltola and incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), was dragged into controversy in the weeks leading up to the midterm election.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of the state’s election, claiming the presence of a candidate with the same name as the incumbent could give Peltola an unfair advantage. Days before the election, the New York Times reported that the Democrat’s campaign was directly involved in recruiting a man named Daniel J. Sullivan in an effort to dilute votes. Peltola has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Following the Times report, Dunleavy ordered an investigation into whether Peltola’s campaign violated state law, and the House Oversight Committee launched its own probe into the alleged scheme.

The race has been neck-and-neck with Peltola taking a slight lead over the incumbent with a little over 48 percent of the votes, according to Decision Desk HQ. Sullivan, on the other hand, has secured 47.9 percent of votes with 70 percent of the expected votes counted.