Democrat Mary Peltola's lead over Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) jumped to 5,800 votes in Thursday's count, her widest of the race, one day after a smaller update had pushed her margin back below the vote total of the second Dan Sullivan on the ballot.
The Alaska Division of Elections' Nov. 12 report gives Peltola 125,157 first-choice votes, or 49.08%, to Sullivan's 119,357, or 46.8%. Republican Gerald Heikes has 5,490, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., the namesake Republicans call "Decoy Dan," has 4,199, and write-ins have 807. Peltola now leads the two Sullivans combined by 1,601 votes.
In Wednesday's count, Sullivan outgained Peltola and her lead slipped from 4,250 votes to 3,975, which was 125 fewer than the 4,100 votes Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had at that point. For one day, the two Sullivans added together were ahead of Peltola again, reversing what we reported on Nov. 11, when her lead first topped the decoy's total.
Thursday's batch, much of it from Juneau and the rest of Southeast Alaska according to the Anchorage Daily News, gave Peltola 3,670 more votes and Sullivan 1,845, adding 1,825 to he
