JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump promised repeatedly during his campaign to expand oil drilling in the U.S., which is good news for political leaders in Alaska, where oil is the economic lifeblood and many felt the Biden administration has obstructed efforts to boost the state’s diminished production.

The top four candidates on the general election ballot included a Democrat serving a 20-year prison sentence in New York.

Republican Nick Begich has ousted incumbent Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola to win Alaska’s lone House seat, Decision Desk HQ projects. That marks 220 seats for Republicans, surpassing the 218 needed to control the chamber.

The Alaska Division of Elections released the results from 17,000 ballots Friday, but thousands of additional ballots remain to be counted, according to figures provided by the division. The latest count,

Statewide, an estimated 30,000-35,000 absentee, questioned and early votes remain to be counted. Atqasuk was the last precinct to report results from Election Day itself. Carol Beecher, director of the Division of Elections, said workers also added scanned ballots from the town of Coffman Cove, in Southeast Alaska.

Alaska elections officials added more than 8,500 ballots to the statewide count Wednesday afternoon, but the new ballots didn’t change the leaders of any races. More significantly, the Alaska Division of Elections reported almost 5,

Republican U.S. House candidate Nick Begich III moved closer to defeating Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola after 46,000 additional Alaska ballots were counted by Wednesday. Begich was ahead by 10,133 votes before Tuesday’s ballot count. He now leads by 9,435 votes, or just over 3%.

Arthur Sammy Heckman Sr. has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of unlawful interference with an election after illegally canceling a local 2023 election and hiding the results of a 2022 election while serving as acting mayor of Pilot Station.

Some absentee and early votes are set to be counted on Tuesday, but Alaskans may need to wait until Nov. 20 for clear results.

Alaska voters were deciding a hard-fought race for the state’s only U.S. House seat that could help decide control of that chamber.

While final results and tabulation are still a few weeks away, preliminary election results can tell us a lot about the future of ranked choice voting, the minimum wage, and the makeup of the 2025 legislature.

On Tuesday night, the Alaska Division of Elections added more than 38,000 votes to the state’s electoral count.