Is there a reason that the race for the US Senate seat from Alaska seems to have been written off in discussion of the of the next United States Senate? It is presumed that the two (2) Georgia Senate seats to be voted on in a January 5, 2021 Special Election will be needed for the Democrats to gain 2 votes to get to a 50-50 tie with the Republicans so that incoming Vice President Kamala Harris can be the tiebreaker. That analysis presumes that Democratic candidate Al Gross lost the race for Alaska’s US Senate seat when, in fact, votes are still being counted.
Incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan led by 62-33 over Gross after the Election Day vote was tabulated with 52% of the estimated vote in, but that itself was an estimate, and the amount of outstanding vote by mail in was possibly double the Election Day vote and Democrats voted by mail at substantially higher rates than Republicans. Meanwhile, the Independent/Democratic Candidate Al Gross is insistent that he is happy where he is at and that he has strong chance to secure victory with the uncounted mail in and early vote:
www.alaskapublic.org/…
I know the odds might seem like tough, but with counting starting today it has already closed to 58-36 with at least 35% of the vote still out. There are more than 100,000 ballots left to be counted as of the evening of November 10, 2020, there is an approximately 53,000 vote difference between Dan Sullivan and Al Gross.
www.cnn.com/...
As there are more than 100,000 votes outstanding, Gross would need to get roughly 70-75% of the outstanding vote to to catch up to and possibly pass Sullivan. Yes, that is a high percentage, but there is a chance with Democrats having a higher proclivity to vote by mail in Alaska as in other states so that the remaining vote in Red areas from mail in ballots is still likely to be Democratic:
www.alaskasnewssource.com/…
While it is not certain Gross will win the Alaska senate, he should be viewed as having sufficient chance to possibly win that he should be written off either. I think we all got a lesson from Pennsylvania where votes from mail in ballots were coming in the 60% range from Red areas and 80 to 90 percent in some heavily Democratic areas. For Al Gross, the message may be “Don’t You Forget About Me” as he continues to enunciate his strong belief in his chances to secure victory. So, I will hope that the Gross can pull out a victory in Alaska, so the Georgia seats can be a fight for Democrats to win the Senate outright 51-49.