2016 United States Senate election in Alaska
The 2016 United States Senate election in Alaska was held on November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Alaska, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
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Murkowski: 20–30% 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Miller: 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% Stock: 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Metcalfe: 20–30% 30–40% Tie%/No Votes: 20–30% 30–40% 40–50% N/A | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Alaska |
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Incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski won re-election to a third term in office. The primaries were held on August 16. She was challenged by several candidates, including Democrat Ray Metcalfe, a former Republican state legislator; Independent Margaret Stock, an attorney; and Libertarian Joe Miller, who had defeated Murkowski for the Republican nomination six years before.
Murkowski was re-elected with 44.4% of the vote, becoming the first person in history to win three elections to the U.S. Senate with pluralities but not majorities, having taken 48.6% in 2004 and 39.5% in 2010. Miller's 29.2% finish was then the best ever for a Libertarian candidate in a U.S. Senate election in terms of vote percentage. This record was surpassed four years later by Ricky Dale Harrington Jr., who received 33.4% of the vote in the 2020 Arkansas Senate election, which had no Democratic candidate. This was also the first U.S. Senate election where four candidates received more than 10% of the vote since the 1942 Minnesota race, as well as being the first Senate race since then where the Democratic nominee finished fourth.