Mary Peltola leads Dan Sullivan by 626 votes in Alaska's uncalled Senate race, and the Justice Department's decoy candidate probe widens

Alaska changed hands during the count on Wednesday. Senator Dan Sullivan led Mary Peltola by 1,677 votes on Wednesday morning. The Associated Press count later in the day put Peltola ahead, 102,701 to 102,075, a margin of 626 votes as of November 4, with 299 of 403 precincts reporting. USA Today's reading of the count at 5 p.m. Eastern put Peltola at 48.2 percent and Sullivan at 47.9 percent. Neither candidate holds a majority of first choice votes, so if that stands when the count finishes, the race goes to a ranked choice tabulation scheduled for November 18. Overseas ballots can arrive up to 15 days after Election Day, and the state targets November 25 for certification.

The second Sullivan on the ballot took 3,583 votes in the AP count, more than five times the margin between the two leaders. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is a retired schoolteacher who ran almost no campaign and raised and spent almost no money, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Republicans call him Decoy Dan and say Democratic operatives recruited him to draw votes from the senator by confusion. Peltola has denied any connection to him.

The Justice Department's criminal investigation of that candidacy widened as the votes were counted. The department has sent at least 20 letters to people and organizations telling them they are investigative targets or must preserve records, a law enforcement source confirmed to USA Today, and it has served at least 120 subpoenas since the investigation began in the summer. The New York Times first reported that the recipients include Marc Elias, the Democratic elections lawyer whose firm represents Peltola's campaign, and at least one official of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Fox News Digital reported that more than 30 of the subpoenas went out in a single 24 hour period last week, after the Times reported the alleged coordination. Investigators are examining possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges, according to the Times. Elias called the investigation a sham. Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to confirm the letters on Tuesday but defended the inquiry. A target letter does not establish guilt and does not guarantee that charges follow, and the department's civil suit over the ballot was dismissed on November 1, as this site reported this morning. The criminal investigation is separate, and it is running while the state counts the race it is about.