With several tens of thousands of ballots still to count, former Sitka legislator Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has a commanding lead in the vote tally and appears headed to victory as Alaska’s first Democratic governor in 24 years.

The Alaska Division of Elections had counted 220,853 ballots as of Monday afternoon, Nov. 9, with JKT, as he is known, at 49.6%, more than 44,000 votes ahead of his nearest challenger.

As of Nov. 9, there were still several tens of thousands of early votes cast in the final days before the election and absentee ballots to count. The division will continue checking ballots to ensure no duplicates are counted, working up until the Nov. 18 deadline in state law for the receipt of mailed absentee ballots.

As of the Division of Elections’ report on Nov. 9, JKT had a commanding 49.6% of the vote (107,166) to second-place finisher Republican Bernadette Wilson’s 28.9% (62,500) in the Nov. 3 election, followed by Republican Dave Bronson at 14.1% and Republican Treg Taylor at 7.4%.

It takes 50% plus one to win an election in Alaska, and JKT will have to wait on the absentee and early votes to be counted. If he does not reach the winning threshold of 50% plus one after all the votes are counted, 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 does 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.

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited after eight years and could not run for reelection this year.

Wrangell voted for JKT on election day, but not by as wide a margin as the statewide total. He collected 234 votes in Wrangell, just under 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’s lead has widened over incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Peltola was ahead by 2,517 votes as of the Nov. 9 count, a gain from her 637-vote lead on Nov. 4. She had 106,321, 48.6%, to the incumbent’s 103,804, 47.5%.

The candidates will need to wait for the early and absentee ballots 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 next choices

Republican Gerald Heikes had 4,865 votes and Dan Sullivan, a retired Petersburg teacher, received 3,651 votes in the U.S. Senate race, as of the Nov. 9 count.

The race to get to 50% plus one likely will be decided by how many of the voters who marked Petersburg Sullivan and Heikes as their first choice selected a second choice — and whether it was Peltola or Sen. Sullivan.

The Senate race was the most expensive in state history, with the campaigns and political action committees raising a reported $150 million.

If Peltola wins, she would be the 56th Democratic senator — if the Democrat who has a slight lead in the Senate race in Mississippi finishes ahead — as part of a large majority in the 100-member Senate. If Sullivan wins, he would be a member of a shrunken Senate Republican caucus that will now be in the minority.

Wrangell voted overwhelmingly for Sullivan over Peltola, 355-206.

The race for Alaska’s one seat in the U.S. House is not close, though the leader, incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich, will have to wait for the final tally to see if reaches 50% plus one.

As of Nov. 4, Begich had 107,187 votes, 49.2%, to independent challenger Bill Hill’s 88,904, 40.8%.

Wrangell voted for Begich over Hill 391 to 141.

The election also included two ballot propositions: One would repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, and one would add the word “only” to state law to say “only U.S. citizens” may vote.

As of last week’s tally, the repeal initiative was going down 52.3% to 47.7%. It is the third time a majority of Alaskans have cast their ballots in favor of ranked-choice voting (2020, 2024 and 2026).

Wrangell, contrary to the rest of the state, voted to repeal ranked-choice voting, 345 to 236.

Statewide, the margin of victory on the citizens-only initiative was huge, 69.4% to 30.6%, and in Wrangell, where it passed by a better than 3-to-1 margin, 448-132.

In state legislative races, incumbent Republican Rep. Jeremy Bynum was far ahead of his independent challenger Grant EchoHawk, 2,800 to 1,778, for reelection to the seat to represent Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Coffman Cove, Whale Pass and Hyder.

In Wrangell voting, Bynum outpolled EchoHawk 408 to 172.

In an election night statement, Kreiss-Tomkins said he’s made a “very, very long list” of issues he wants to tackle, and he’s committed to work across partisan divides for Alaskans, including with the Trump administration. 

“Instead of conflict and dysfunction, we want compromise and collaboration,” said Kreiss-Tomkins, as reported by the Anchorage Daily News. “It seems like the country wants change more broadly, and Americans have spoken with their votes, and it’s a pretty strong statement.”