Alaska’s 2026 election cycle carries an unusual structural feature: the same ballot that decides one of the most closely watched U.S. Senate races in the country also asks voters whether to scrap the election system being used to decide it. Here is how Alaska’s primary and general election process works this year, and what’s on the ballot alongside the candidates themselves.
The same ballot that decides one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races will also determine whether Alaska keeps the election system used to conduct it.
How Alaska elects its officials
Since 2020, Alaska has used a two-stage system for its major state and federal races. In the August primary, all candidates — regardless of party — appear on a single ballot available to every registered voter. The top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election. In November, voters rank those four candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place finisher is eliminated and their votes redistributed to those voters’ next choice, repeating until one candidate has a majority.
This year’s primary is scheduled for August 18; the general election follows on November 3.
The Senate race
Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, first elected in 2014 and seeking a third term, faces Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, a former U.S. House member who represented Alaska’s at-large district from 2022 to 2025. Sixteen candidates in total filed for the Senate primary, including several with limited fundraising and one Republican filer who shares the incumbent’s name.
National party committees have invested heavily in the race on both sides. President Trump and Rep. Nick Begich, who holds Alaska’s U.S. House seat, have both endorsed Sullivan. On fundraising, the two campaigns present different pictures depending on the metric: Peltola has outraised Sullivan for two consecutive quarters, but has also outspent him heavily, leaving Sullivan with a larger war chest heading into the primary — $8.3 million in cash on hand as of early July, compared to Peltola’s $6.1 million. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska’s other Republican senator, endorsed Peltola in her prior U.S. House campaigns but has endorsed Sullivan in this race. Independent race ratings, including Fox News’s Power Rankings, list the contest as a toss-up; publicly available polling on the race has been sparse and inconsistent enough that Election Desk is not citing a specific margin.
Because Sullivan and Peltola are all but certain to finish among the top four, the August primary is expected to serve more as a preview of November than an elimination contest.
Because Sullivan and Peltola are all but certain to finish among the top four August 18 vote-getters, the primary is expected to function mainly as a preview of the November field rather than a genuine elimination contest between the two front-runners.
The governor’s race
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and cannot seek a third term, producing one of the largest open-seat fields in recent Alaska history. Seventeen candidates originally filed — 11 Republicans, three Democrats and three independents or nonpartisans — before Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, a Republican, withdrew in mid-July. Candidates run on a joint ticket with a lieutenant governor nominee. Among the better-funded and more prominently covered candidates are Republicans Bernadette Wilson, Click Bishop and Treg Taylor; Democrats Tom Begich and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins; and nonpartisan former Gov. Bill Walker. As with the Senate race, the top four primary finishers advance to a ranked-choice general election, with the winner taking office December 7.
The measure that could undo the system itself
Layered on top of both races is a ballot question that would repeal the top-four primary and ranked-choice general election system entirely. Alaska voters adopted the system in 2020 by a margin of about one percentage point. A repeal attempt in 2024 failed by an even narrower margin — 737 votes out of roughly 321,000 cast, the closest statewide result in Alaska history. Backers of repeal gathered more than 42,000 signatures to qualify a second attempt, which the Alaska Division of Elections confirmed in December 2025 for placement on the 2026 ballot.
The 2026 measure would eliminate the top-four primary and ranked-choice general election, restore party-based primaries, reinstate special-election runoffs, and repeal or amend campaign finance disclosure requirements that were bundled into the original 2020 measure. One of its three named sponsors, Bernadette Wilson, is simultaneously a Republican candidate in the open governor’s race being conducted under the very system her measure would repeal. Under Alaska’s constitution, an initiated law takes effect 90 days after certification of the election results; state election officials have confirmed that even if voters approve the repeal, it would not alter how the August primary or the November general election themselves are conducted this cycle — those races proceed under the current system regardless of the measure’s outcome.
Even if voters approve repeal, Alaska’s 2026 elections will still be conducted under the current top-four primary and ranked-choice voting system.
Supporters of repeal argue the current system is confusing to voters, particularly older Alaskans, and that a single-choice, party-based primary is more straightforward. Supporters of keeping the current system argue it gives Alaska’s large bloc of unaffiliated and nonpartisan voters — a majority of the electorate — a meaningful role in primaries they would otherwise be excluded from under a closed-primary system, and point to consistently low ballot-error rates under ranked-choice tabulation. The Alaska Division of Elections held public hearings on the measure’s ballot language in late July, a step required by law before measures are finalized for printing.
A separate, unrelated ballot question — Measure 1, which would impose new campaign contribution limits — appears on the August 18 primary ballot rather than the November general election ballot.
The most consequential result of Alaska’s 2026 election may not simply be who wins—it may be whether the state’s election system survives beyond this cycle.
What to watch
Results from the August 18 primary will confirm which four candidates advance in each race, though front-runner status in both the Senate and governor’s contests is not expected to be seriously in doubt. The more structurally significant outcome may not be known until the ranked-choice tabulation of the general election in November — for the candidates themselves, and for whether Alaska’s electoral system will still exist in its current form after this cycle.
Sources: Alaska Division of Elections; Alaska Beacon; Anchorage Daily News; Ballotpedia; electionline.org; Alaska Public Media; Wikipedia (2026 United States Senate election in Alaska; 2026 Alaska gubernatorial election).
Election Desk 
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