Republican Dan Sullivan led incumbent Democrat Mark Begich in the Alaska Senate race as of Wednesday morning, although Begich has not conceded and a large number of ballots remain uncounted.
Sullivan led Begich 49 percent to 45 percent Tuesday night with all of Alaska’s precincts reporting, but the Associated Press has not called the race.
And it appears that it’ll take at least a week for outstanding ballots to be counted.
Election officials said they would count 24,000 early and absentee ballots on Nov. 11, in addition to 14,000 other requested absentee ballots if they are returned within the next two weeks, according to the AP.
Begich did not concede Tuesday night and assured his supporters “it might be a week from now, two weeks from now, but we will be victorious,” according to the AP.
“Begich will make a statement on the race after counts arrive from the seventy outstanding villages and when the number of outstanding absentee and questioned ballots is clear,” campaign manager Susanne Fleek-Green said in a statement, as quoted by the AP.
This makes sense, as Begich is heavily counting on those outlying villages to vote for him and as we saw in previous stories, he had a really good contact and outreach team to get those votes.
Right now, Begich is behind by about 8000 votes, with an estimated 73% of votes counted, a total of 213,000 already cast. That leaves about 60 to 70 thousand votes outstanding, I believe?
Totally winnable for Begich still.