Alaska was a trial run for Democrats’ Senate majority hopes. How did it go? | CNN Politics

The Alaska primary on Tuesday presented us with something unusual ahead of the 2026 midterm elections: An actual matchup between the two candidates who will face off in November in a key Senate race. That’s because the state uses an all-party primary system and ranked-choice voting. Also, there were no other serious contenders. The results should be pretty encouraging for Democrats. With about 80% of votes counted, Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola leads Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, 48.1% to 42.7%. The rest of the vote was split up between also-ran candidates from both parties trying to make the general election by finishing in the top four. And given most of the votes left to count are advance ballots, which Peltola has done well with so far, she could expand her advantage further, possibly approaching 50%. So what we appear to have here is an incumbent senator losing pretty handily in the first round of voting. That doesn’t mean Sullivan will lose in November, when the electorate will be different. But it’s pretty inauspicious for Republicans – and in a very important state for Democrats’ Senate majority math. Primaries aren’t predictive, of course. For example, Pe