Senator wins reelection in Alaska, Trump takes the state

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, won reelection Wednesday after a tougher-than-expected race against an independent candidate to help the Republicans’ chances to hold a Senate majority.

Sullivan currently holds a comfortable 20-point lead over Al Gross. John Wayne Howe of the Alaskan Independence Party, got about 5% of the vote.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday also won the state and its three electoral votes.

Sullivan’s victory, which came on the heels of the win of Sen. Thom Tillis in North Carolina, put Republicans a step closer to keeping control of the Senate. The fate of the Senate now hinges entirely on two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5; if Republicans win either one, they keep their majority.

The race in conservative-leaning Alaska was not on the national map of competitive contests at the start of the election cycle. But Gross — a commercial fisherman, former orthopedic surgeon and political newcomer who ran with the backing of the Democratic Party and said he would align himself with them — mounted an aggressive challenge that, along with Trump’s sagging approval ratings in the state, helped attract national financial support from Democrats.

The contest tightened, placing Sullivan, like other Senate Republicans elected in 2014 who were regarded as up-and-comers in the party, at unexpected risk as Democrats looked to widen their path to winning back the majority.