Democrat Mary Peltola has widened her lead over Republican Senator Dan Sullivan in Alaska's U.S. Senate race, the last contest from the 3 November midterm elections still without a winner. The latest count released on Wednesday put Peltola on 121,487 votes to Sullivan's 117,512, a lead of 3,975 votes, with about 86 per cent of the expected vote counted. The Associated Press still rates the race too early to call.

Peltola, a former U.S. representative, has led since election night, when her advantage was just 637 votes. It grew to 2,517 votes on Monday and to 4,250 votes in Tuesday's count, before narrowing slightly in the latest update as more ballots were added. She holds about 48.9 per cent of first-choice votes to Sullivan's 47.3 per cent.

No candidate past 50 per cent

Neither candidate has reached half of first-choice votes, so the race will almost certainly be decided by Alaska's ranked-choice tabulation, scheduled for 18 November. The state will then redistribute the second choices of voters who backed the lowest-placed candidates. The next count is expected on Friday, 13 November, the deadline for absentee ballots posted inside the United States to arrive. Certification is targeted for 25 November.

The other Dan Sullivan

Complicating the count is a second candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher from Petersburg, who has 4,100 votes. Gerald Heikes, another Republican, has 5,426. On Tuesday's figures Peltola led the two Sullivans combined by 223 votes. The Justice Department sued to delay certification of the race, but a federal judge threw out the case on 1 November and the department has appealed. President Donald Trump declared Sullivan the winner on 7 November, even though he was trailing at the time.

The result will not change control of the Senate, which Democrats already hold 55-44 after Scott Colom's win in Mississippi, but it will decide the final margin and whether a Democrat takes a seat Republicans have held since 2015.