Former Sitka legislator Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is leading the gubernatorial race and could be Alaska’s first Democratic governor in 24 years with a lead in the vote count as of the Division of Elections report early on the morning of November 4, 2026.
JKT, as he is known, had a commanding 49.01% of the vote (103,610) to current second-place Republican Bernadette Wilson’s 29.12% (61,566) in Tuesday’s election, followed by Republican Dave Bronson at 14.14% and Republican Treg Taylor at 7.43%.
It takes 50% plus one to win an election in Alaska, and JKT will have to wait on the tens of thousands of absentee and early votes still to count and seven rural precincts that had not reported as of early Wednesday morning.
If he does not reach the winning threshold of 50% plus one after all the votes are counted in the next two weeks, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system would kick in.
The fourth-place finisher, Taylor, would be eliminated and his voters would be counted for their second choice. If that did not move JKT to 50% plus one, the third-place finisher, Bronson, would be eliminated and his voters would be counted for their next choice between the two remaining candidates, JKT and Wilson.
The deadline for absentee ballots to arrive at the Division of Elections to be counted is Nov. 18.
Wrangell voted for JKT, but not by as wide a margin as the statewide total. He collected 234 votes on Tuesday in Wrangell, about 40%, to 188 for Wilson, 118 for Bronson and 48 for Taylor.
In the nationally significant race for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola held a 626-vote lead as of early Wednesday morning, with 102,701 votes, 48.02%, over incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan’s 102,075, 47.73%.
The candidates will need to wait for the early and absentee ballots still to be tallied, and then likely will go through the ranked-choice tabulation to determine the winner, where the thousands of votes cast for the third- and fourth-place finishers would be redistributed to their second and third choices
Republican Gerald Heikes received 4,821 votes and Dan Sullivan, a retired Petersburg teacher, received 3,583 votes in the U.S. Senate race, as of Wednesday morning’s count.
The Senate race was the most expensive in state history, with the campaigns and political action committees raising a reported $150 million.
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Incumbent Republican Jeremy Bynum won over challenger Grant Echohawk by 1,022 votes, according to unofficial results for the Southeast Alaska House District 1 seat. The district includes Wrangell, Ketchikan, Metlakatla, Whale Pass, and Coffman Cove.
