Yahoo Autos Murkowski, Peltola reelected in Alaska's ranked-choice voting, ABC News reports
ABC News reports that Alaska's incumbent senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, is projected to win reelection against another Republican opponent, Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka, and that Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, is projected to win reelection to her at-large House seat against Republican challenger Sarah Palin.
The projections come after the Alaska Division of Elections on Wednesday night revealed the results of the state's new ranked-choice voting system and are some of the last outstanding races of the 2022 midterm elections.
Even with the Murkowski projection, power in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate remains at 50-49 since the last remaining Senate candidates in Alaska were both Republicans. The final outcome of the seat count in the Senate will be determined by a Dec. 6 runoff election in Georgia between incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP challenger Herschel Walker.
With Peltola's projected win, Democrats have 213 seats in a Republican-controlled House.
The unusually tight contests featured Murkowski, a moderate Republican who supports abortion rights and who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, and Tshibaka, a staunch Trump supporter who previously served as a commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration.
Peltola, reelected as the first Democrat to occupy the seat since the early 1970s, faced a rematch with former Republican vice president nominee Palin -- and all the races were determined through a lengthy ranked-choice voting process because none of the candidates in the Alaska Senate or House races received 50% of the vote on Nov. 8.
According to the new election system, approved by Alaskans in 2020, contests where neither candidate reached the majority mark eliminated the individual who finished with the lowest number of votes. If a voter had chosen that last-place candidate, their vote then goes to their second choice. If a voter's first choice was not eliminated, their vote stays with that candidate. The votes are then counted again.
MORE: Here's how ranked choice voting will decide Alaska's Senate race
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