Democrats are on the verge of pulling off two more major Senate upsets.
In Alaska, former Rep. Mary Peltola has now received more votes than Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and an independent candidate with the same name combined. Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom has extended his narrow lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to more than 3,000 votes.
Both races remain too close to call, but the latest ballot updates are giving Democrats another reason to watch the final Senate results closely.
Peltola expanded her lead over Sullivan following the latest ballot drop Tuesday, receiving 49% of the vote compared with the incumbent’s 47.2%, according to unofficial results from Alaska’s Division of Elections.
With approximately 84% of ballots counted, Peltola had 118,926 votes. Republican Dan Sullivan and independent Dan J. Sullivan had a combined 118,703.
That’s right: Peltola has now received more votes than both candidates sharing her opponent’s name put together.
Dan J. Sullivan received 4,027 votes, or 1.7% of the total.
VoteHub head of data science Zachary Donnini highlighted the development on X, noting that Peltola now has more votes than both Sullivans combined and has a solid chance of reaching 50% outright if the remaining ballot drops continue to favor Democrats as they did in the primary.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, meaning an instant runoff takes place if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes. The lowest-performing candidate is eliminated, and ballots are redistributed according to voters’ next choices until someone wins a majority.
Peltola’s campaign expressed confidence that the former congresswoman would ultimately prevail.
Campaign manager Cheryl Bruce said Sullivan has no “viable path to reelection.”
“We remain exceptionally confident that Mary will be elected when every vote is counted, and Mary is eager to take her fight to the United States Senate,” Bruce said.
The race has also drawn the attention of Donald Trump, who has questioned its legitimacy and accused Democrats of using Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy to split the Republican vote. Peltola and other Democrats have rejected that accusation.
Trump even posted a graphic on Truth Social comparing the two Sullivans’ combined vote total with Peltola’s. In a rather unusual presentation, the graphic displayed the Sullivans’ total in green with a check mark while marking Peltola’s larger total in red with an X.
The Justice Department also attempted to intervene, filing a lawsuit seeking to block certification if the Republican incumbent lost. The DOJ argued that having two candidates named Dan Sullivan on the ballot could confuse voters. A federal judge dismissed the case.
Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom is also holding onto his lead and has widened the margin over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
According to Decision Desk HQ, The Hill’s election partner, Colom led Hyde-Smith by 49.11% to 48.79% as of 10:31 p.m. EST Tuesday. That translated to 470,266 votes for Colom and 467,183 for Hyde-Smith — a margin of 3,083 votes.
Independent candidate Ty Perkins was in third place with approximately 2.1% of the vote.
The race remains one of the biggest surprises of the midterms. Colom, an attorney, has maintained a narrow advantage in a state where election forecasters had widely viewed Hyde-Smith as the favorite.
Colom took a swipe at those forecasters on Monday, criticizing outlets that had classified his race and other Southern contests as safely Republican.
“At some point, we have to talk about … ‘prognosticators’ who had me and other southern candidates labeled as solid R for much of the campaign cycle,” Colom wrote on social media.
He argued that those ratings made fundraising more difficult and reflected an outdated view of the political landscape in the South.
“They’re only a reflection of the past and mysteriously avoid any accountability when they’re wrong,” he added.
Hyde-Smith, meanwhile, has remained optimistic despite trailing in the count.
The remaining ballots could still determine the outcome. Mississippi had a Tuesday deadline for provisional ballots and for receiving mail-in absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day.
Alaska and Mississippi are the last two undecided Senate races, and both are now showing Democrats expanding their leads.
