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It’s Election Day, and even once election night is over on the East Coast, it still won't really be over. Alaska's very final polling places — located in the Aleutian Islands — close at 1 am Eastern Standard Time, or 9 pm Alaska Standard Time. If election night jitters leave you unable to sleep, here's what to look out for as voting winds down.
Kashi Alaska Senate Race: Peltola at 71% as Alaska Closes Last
Across prediction markets, Democrat Mary Peltola holds a sizeable lead over Republican Dan Sullivan. Kalshi and Polymarket users are both trading in favor of Peltola 71% of the time.
Despite the gap, this race has not been without drama. Peltola currently faces allegations that she was complicit in selecting a "spoiler" candidate to weaken Sullivan's campaign. Peltola has vehemently denied knowledge of that effort, but with these accusations surfacing so recently, it is hard to say whether or not there would even be time for prediction markets to adjust to this information.
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Judge Dismissed DOJ Lawsuit; DOJ Plans to Appeal
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Department of Justice on Sunday, denying the possibility of delaying certification for whomever wins the race in Alaska. This preemptive move by the Trump Administration assumes a high chance of Peltola winning without intervention — all the more reason for prediction markets to support the Democrat. The DOJ plans to appeal the ruling.
Final Polls: Times/Siena has Peltola up 2, Mostly Before Allegations
As always, as clear as prediction markets are, the polls tell a more nuanced story. Times/Siena polling numbers currently have Peltola at 48% approval rating and Sullivan at 46%. The Times said most of its Alaska polling was completed before the allegations surfaced, so don't be surprised if election day results are even closer than the polls suggest.
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When Alaska’s Results Arrive
Alaska’s polls close at 1 a.m. ET. Even if results are tallied within the hour, most voters on Central and Eastern time zones will be asleep, so look out for election announcements upon waking up Wednesday morning.
Last-minute Checklist: Why a Late-resolving Market is Different
One important reason to keep an eye out for this market: A Senate-control prediction market could stay unresolved until Wednesday if Alaska's race decides control. Should control already be decided by the other 49 states, those markets should resolve by late tonight.
Alaska Senate Race Summary
Alaska’s Senate race opened with incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, a two-term senator since 2014 who won re-election by double digits in 2020, now seeking a third term against Democrat Mary Peltola, the former U.S. Representative. Because Alaska uses a nonpartisan top-four primary followed by ranked-choice voting, the August primary produced a genuinely strange wrinkle: a second, unrelated candidate also named Dan Sullivan advanced to the general election, alongside Gerald Heikes. Super PACs reportedly spent more than $3 million trying to boost minor candidates, a move widely read as an attempt to split votes away from one of the two frontrunners.
Senator Lisa Murkowski has campaigned for Sullivan, giving him a credible bridge to Alaska’s large bloc of independent voters, who could end up deciding the race under ranked-choice tabulation. On fundraising, Sullivan has raised roughly $6.5 million this cycle and holds more cash on hand, but Peltola posted a notably strong recent quarter.
Through it all, prediction markets have consistently favored Peltola, with her probability of winning sitting in the low-to-mid 70s for much of the fall, even as polling has described the race as genuinely close.
