Who is leading Alaska’s US House race?

The November 2022 United States House of Representatives election in Alaska was held on Tuesday, November 8, to elect a member of the United States House of Representatives to represent the state of Alaska.

Following voter approval of Ballot Measure 2 during the 2020 elections in Alaska, this was the second U.S. House election in Alaska held under the new election process, after the special election for the same seat on August 16, 2022.

All candidates ran in a nonpartisan blanket top-four primary on the same day as the special election, with each voter casting a single vote for their preferred candidate.

The four candidates who received the most votes were Mary Peltola, Sarah Palin, Nick Begich III, and Tara Sweeney.

Sweeney, however, withdrew from the race, so the fifth-place finisher—Chris Bye—moved on to the general election, in which voters will utilize ranked-choice voting.

Who is leading Alaska’s US House race?

Democrat U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola was leading in first-choice votes in preliminary returns from Tuesday’s election, with over 217,000 ballots counted and thousands of absentee votes still left to be tallied.

Peltola had 47% of first-choice votes with all precincts reporting. Under Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, results aren’t final until a candidate has garnered more than 50% of votes.

If the leading candidate doesn’t cross that threshold, the winner will be determined by second and third-choice votes, which will be tallied by election officials on Nov. 23.