Incumbent Anchorage Republican Rep. Charisse Millett appeared to seal her re-election Friday after another round of vote counting, increasing her lead over Democratic challenger Pat Higgins to 76 votes, 23 more than previously.
The Alaska elections division is still accepting absentee ballots through Friday, as long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day. But Anchorage elections officials estimated there would be no more than 100 additional ballots in any district next week before counting is complete.
After the count on election night, Millett had only a 45-vote lead over Higgins with more than 6,500 total ballots cast. But her advantage has grown as officials count absentee, questioned and other outstanding ballots.
Higgins, an Anchorage School Board member, said by phone Friday morning that he hadn't seen the new counts and wasn't ready to concede.
Millett, a leader in last year's Republican House majority, said she needed to call her family and tell them the results before commenting.
The race between Millett and Higgins for House District 25, in South Anchorage, was the closest of this year's 50 Alaska legislative races — 40 for House seats and 10 for Senate seats.
[Alaska senator's 'personal vacation' is actually a trip to India with a state-funded organization]
In Southwest Anchorage, incumbent Republican Rep. Liz Vazquez closed the gap with independent challenger Jason Grenn by 29 votes in Friday morning's count. But even after those gains, Vazquez, who watched the counting at the elections division's Anchorage office, still faced a daunting deficit of 198 votes.
Incumbent East Anchorage Republican Rep. Lance Pruitt picked up 15 more votes on his Democratic challenger, Harry Crawford, to bring his lead to 144.
The elections division aims to certify the results on Nov. 29.
With several House races still close, the incoming majority coalition, led by a Democrat for the first time since the 1990s, still hasn't announced its complete roster of members on the coveted Finance Committee, while the Republican minority hasn't announced any of its leadership or committee positions.