Democrat Peltola Closes In On Alaska Senate Seat. She Is Already Claiming Victory.

The likelihood that Democrat Mary Peltola will win the Alaska Senate race against incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan is growing. If she wins, Democrats will hold a 56-44 majority in the Upper House come January.

With 96% of ballots counted, Peltola leads Sullivan by 49.8% to 46.1%, AP estimates. Although major outlets have not yet projected a Peltola victory, the Democrat's campaign team has claimed that her victory is already a mathematical certainty.

"There is no mathematical path for Sullivan to win this race. When the remaining votes are counted, Mary will decisively be elected as Alaska's next United States Senator," Peltola's X account posted early on Saturday morning.

If Peltola does win, she will be the first Alaska Democrat to win election to the Senate since Mark Begich in 2008. Alaska is the only state not to have declared the results of its midterm Senate race, meaning that Peltola's election would confirm the Democrats' gain of a 12-seat majority in the Senate over their Republican opponents, the largest majority of its kind since 2008.

However, the Alaska campaign has been fraught with controversy; prominent Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have accused Alaska Democrats of intentionally trying to mislead the non-contiguous state's electorate by ballot stacking, whereby a candidate attempts to draw votes away from their opponent by "stacking" the ballot with other candidates.

In the Alaska Senate race, another man called Dan Sullivan is running under no party affiliation. A New York Times report in late October found that "operatives aligned with Mary Peltola ... spent months recruiting candidates to peel votes from Senator Dan Sullivan, the Republican."

The Peltola campaign denies these allegations of ballot stacking.

In spite of the accusations, an unprecedented attempt by the Trump administration to use the Department of Justice (DOJ) to block certification of the Alaska results in case of a Peltola victory failed.

Nonetheless, the failure of the lawsuit has not stopped the president from claiming that the election is "rigged."

"Dan Sullivan PLUS Dan Sullivan wins the Alaska Election by thousands of votes. All votes going to the Fake Dan Sullivan, which was done solely for the purpose of fraud and confusion, should immediately be given to the Real Dan Sullivan (Senator!) - Likewise the votes of the second fraudulent candidate, also put up by the Dems," Trump posted to his Truth Social account on Tuesday.

The other candidate on the ballot, Gerald Heikes, is running as a registered Republican. He told the New York Times that he had been recruited for Senate by "a guy from the Midwest" who promised to "make things happen" for him.

Contrary to Trump's numerical claims, Heikes and the two Sullivans have, at the time of writing, amassed a total of 138,273 votes, 33 votes ahead of Peltola's current total of 138,240, according to the latest AP figures.

Trump has also claimed Alaskan voters need "about a 190 IQ to figure out the ballot."

On the ballot the candidates are listed as Peltola, Mary (Registered Democrat), Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr., Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent, and Heikes, Gerald L. (Registered Republican).