The 2026 United States Senate election in Alaska will be held on November 3, 2026, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the state of Alaska. A jungle primary election will be held on August 18, 2026, from which the top four candidates will advance to the general election, which will be conducted under ranked-choice voting.
Incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan, who was re-elected in 2020 with 53.9% of the vote, has declared his re-election bid. Mary Peltola, a former U.S. representative from Alaska's at-large congressional district is also running for the seat as a Democrat.
No Democrat has represented Alaska in the Senate since 2015, and Alaska has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. Peltola is the only Democrat to have won a statewide election in Alaska since Mark Begich was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008.
Under Alaska's voting system, all candidates, regardless of party, will run on the same primary ballot. The top four candidates in the primary will advance to the general election, which will be conducted using ranked-choice voting.
Incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan announced his run for re-election in early 2025. He was first elected in 2014, defeating Mark Begich, the last Democrat to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate. He was last re-elected in 2020, prior to the implementation of Alaska's ranked-choice voting system. Facing few obvious swing state targets to regain the Senate majority in 2026, Democrats began looking towards more Republican-leaning states, such as Ohio and Texas, as potential targets. Among these states was Alaska, where Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer heavily courted former U.S. Representative Mary Peltola, the last Democrat to win any statewide election in Alaska, to run for Senate. Peltola herself mulled between running for Senate and running for governor, but she ultimately decided to enter the Senate race in early 2026, setting up the race between her and Sullivan.
Peltola's entry into the race immediately made the race competitive, according to most predictors. She still faces significant hurdles, such as Sullivan's incumbency and lack of a prominent Republican challenger, the unpopularity of the national Democratic Party in Alaska, and a reduction in cross-party support. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's other U.S. Senator and a noted moderate Republican, had endorsed Peltola in her 2022 and 2024 bids for U.S. House, but she endorsed Sullivan in this race instead.
Dan Sullivan vs. Mary Peltola
Aggregate polls<br />
Partisan clients<br />