ANCHORAGE, Alaska — With thousands more votes still to be counted, Republican Rep. Nick Begich maintained a solid eight-point lead over independent challenger Bill Hill on Tuesday evening in the race for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat.

Hill, a retired educator and fisherman from Southwest Alaska, said in a statement last week that all votes must be counted, and that the race's early results show Alaskans want change.

Hill's campaign manager, Kevin Groh, said last week that the campaign expected that the tens of thousands of early and absentee votes that are still to arrive and be counted, as well as ranked choice tabulation, will trend in Hill's favor. The Division of Elections released the results of roughly 25,000 ballots on Tuesday evening, bringing the total of votes counted so far to roughly 245,000.

"I think the final result will be quite close," Groh said.

Groh said he did not know who would win. But longtime political consultant Art Hackney, who often works for Republican candidates and said he placed rural targeted messaging for Begich this cycle, predicted that Begich would solidly prevail.

"It would take a blizzard like I do not see in any forecast for Bill Hill to have a snowball's chance of beating Nick Begich," he said in a text. "I think 53% to 47% is likely end result."

Begich campaign spokesman Paul Smith said the lawmaker is hopeful, and focused on his job.

"While we remain cautiously optimistic and the underlying data provided to the public by the Division of Elections supports that view, we want to respect that tens of thousands of votes remain uncounted," Smith said in a text. "Congressman Begich is back in Washington to support the remainder of the 119th Congress and is making preparations for serving in the 120th."

The Alaska Division of Elections isn't expected to finish counting ballots until Nov. 18, the final deadline for absentee ballots to arrive at the division. On that day, any races where one candidate does not receive more than 50% of the vote will be decided using ranked choice tabulation.

In the ranked choice tabulation process, the U.S. House race's two fringe candidates — currently third-place Eric Hafner and fourth-place Jim McDermott — could be eliminated, with voters' next preferences on those ballots redistributed to the leading candidates.

The results are set to be certified on Nov. 25.

For now, with much more ballot-counting still to come, Begich has 118,337 first-choice votes, or 48.8% of the vote.

Hill has 99,240 votes, or 40.9% of the vote.

Hafner, a Democrat serving a long prison sentence in New York, received 7.5% of the vote, or 18,121 votes.

Jim McDermott, a Libertarian from Fairbanks, received 2.7% of the vote, or 6,497 votes.

The vast majority of the ballots left to be counted are early in-person or absentee votes that have so far favored Hill, Groh said.

Those votes will help Hill, as will the ranked choice tabulation, Groh said.

"The data that we've seen so far is that Bill receives more second-choice votes from not only Eric Hafner voters, but also Jim McDermott voters as well," Groh said.

Groh also said Thursday that the Hill campaign is grateful for the support it received from Matt Schultz, a Democrat and Anchorage pastor who dropped out of the race in July but still appeared on the August primary ballot, receiving 8% of the primary vote. Schultz encouraged voters to support Hill.

Begich is looking to serve his second term in office.

If he wins, he'll face a new environment in the House, after Democrats on Nov. 3 regained control of the chamber from the GOP for the first time in four years amid a historic progressive wave that many see as a rebuke against the policies of Republican President Donald Trump.

Begich has touted his ability to work across party lines, but he has been a close ally of Trump, whose price-spiking Iran war and global trade conflict became a political liability for GOP candidates in the midterms.

But under the Republican-led House and presidency, Begich over the last two years has notched unique legislative accomplishments, including getting seven bills he sponsored signed into law, according to govtrack.us, a record for a freshman U.S. representative.

Hill, running his first race for statewide office, has expressed support for expanding oil and gas development in Alaska along with renewable energy, attacked Begich over cuts to Medicaid in the Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and highlighted concerns about the economy and income inequality.

Hill has declined to say which party he would caucus with if he is elected, but he has been endorsed by the Alaska Democratic Party. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the national campaign arm for U.S. House Democrats, also threw its support behind Hill.

_____

©2026 Anchorage Daily News. Visit at adn.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.