Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola speaks to volunteers and supporters a campaign field office in Anchorage on Tuesday, Aug. 18. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, led incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in the race for a U.S. Senate seat representing Alaska after preliminary results were reported Tuesday night in the statewide primary election.

With 132,746 ballots counted and nearly 94% of precincts reporting, Peltola had 63,364 votes — or 48% of the vote — in preliminary results as of 2:15 a.m. Wednesday.

Sullivan had 56,510 votes, or 42.8% of the vote so far. Thousands more ballots remain to be counted in the coming days.

Sen. Dan Sullivan waves at passing cars along the Seward Highway near Northern Lights Boulevard on primary election day Tuesday. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Dan J. Sullivan, the namesake challenger to Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and a retired teacher from Petersburg, was running third with 3,222 votes or 2.4% of the vote.

He was followed by David Leslie, a Fairbanks Democrat, with 1,491 votes, and Gerald Heikes, a Republican perennial candidate from Palmer, with 1,468 votes, amounting to roughly 1.1% of the vote for each of them.

The open primary is a first round that will determine which four candidates, from the field of 16, will advance to the general election in November for selection in Alaska’s ranked choice voting system.

Sullivan and Peltola are the leading candidates in a race that’s seen as an opportunity for Democrats hoping to take back control of the U.S. Senate, if Peltola can oust Sullivan.

Peltola became the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress in 2022, but lost to current U.S. Rep. Nick Begich in 2024. Sullivan, a retired U.S. Marine Corps reserve colonel serving in his second term, was elected to the seat in 2014.

The race has seen enormous fundraising by those two candidates, shadowy spending by political action committees to boost fringe candidates including non-Alaskans, and the controversial candidacy of Dan J. Sullivan, who also filed to run as a Republican.

President Donald Trump last week issued a statement urging Alaskans to not be fooled into voting for the senator’s namesake challenger, Daniel J. Sullivan, and instead to vote for Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, whom Trump said has done a “fantastic job” representing Alaska.

News also broke over the weekend that Peltola recently reorganized top staffers after she rejected the fundraising support of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate who lost to in 2024, including by 13 points in Alaska.

Sullivan and national Republican groups asserted that the changes showed chaos in the Peltola camp, and that Democrats in Washington, D.C., are actually in charge.

Peltola’s campaign describe them as “staffing updates” as she transitions into the general election.

Peltola has touted record levels of donations, and her campaign recently reported taking in $16.8 million, with $4.6 million on hand after expenses.

Sullivan has taken in $8.2 million and reported $7.3 million in hand after expenses, for the same period.

Peltola’s running on what she describes as a pro-fish, pro-family campaign that focuses on affordability issues amid persistent inflation, fixing the “rigged” political system in D.C., and restoring Alaska’s struggling fisheries in part by banning factory trawling to reduce bycatch.

Speaking to a large crowd that filled the theater room at 49th State Brewing in downtown Anchorage after the first results were released, Peltola said her campaign has 10,000 Alaska volunteers who are going to door to door and phone banking.

“And that’s exactly how we’re gonna win this race,” she said.

Before several dozen supporters at the Alaska Aviation Museum in Anchorage on Tuesday night, Sullivan highlighted his efforts to bring billions of federal dollars into Alaska to boost the state’s military, including to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and to the U.S. Coast Guard to support new icebreakers, as well as on “fisheries, cleaning up our oceans, strengthening our salmon farms, banning Russian and Chinese trawl-caught fish from coming into our country.”

[Trawling and bycatch dominate political messaging in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race]

Sullivan said in an interview afterward that the night was early, and that in 2024, Peltola “won 51% of the vote on primary night two years ago, and then she lost.”

Earlier in the day, while campaigning in Midtown Anchorage, he weighed in on the candidacy of Petersburg’s Dan J. Sullivan, which he described as an “insult” to Alaskans. The senator and national Republicans have alleged that the Petersburg challenger is a Democratic plant trying to steal votes from the incumbent.

Dan J. Sullivan has denied those allegations, and he was allowed to appear on the Alaska ballot after the Alaska Supreme Court upheld a lower court judge’s determination that the Petersburg Sullivan was eligible to run.

“So the decoy Dan thing is a distraction, but I actually think it’s going to help us because people are mad about it,” Sen. Sullivan said.

Referring to the two years and 3.5 months Peltola served, he said she had “two terms in Congress, zero bills signed into law.”

Sullivan said he’s had dozens of bills “signed into law, and that doesn’t even include the Working Families Tax Cuts Act from last year, (in) which Alaska dominated, right?” he said, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that included additional federal funds for Alaska.

Peltola on Tuesday blasted Sullivan for voting “along with corporate greed” that she blamed for crushing costs across Alaska, from “healthcare to fuel to groceries to transportation to heat.”

“And then it was the Big Beautiful Bill,” which she said “Dan Sullivan has the audacity to call this the Alaska Opportunity Act.

“The only opportunity that bill has brought to Alaskans is the opportunity for 10,000 Alaskans to get off of Medicaid,” she said.

The race has been marked by fringe candidates who have gotten a boost with help from shadowy political action committees.

Peltola’s recently campaign committee launched a website — theyarenotfromhere.com — arguing that national Republicans were spending big to promote spoiler candidates.

Fair Deal Alaska, which formed late last month, spent more than $800,000 promoting Carol Hafner, a Democrat, and Richard Grayson, a Green Party member, in an effort to weaken support for Peltola.

Both Hafner and Grayson live in the Lower 48 and have run for office in other states.

Together, they’d received less than 1% of the vote early Wednesday.

Right For Alaska, which formed earlier this year, has spent $2.4 million promoting Heikes and Earl “Skip” Southworth in an effort to weaken Sullivan. Southworth, from Dutch Harbor and a member of the newly formed Alaskan Party, had received 556 votes, or 0.5%, early Wednesday.

Daily News photojournalist Marc Lester contributed reporting.