A former Republican governor of Alaska and a 2008 vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin did not quite hit the mark in the race against Democrat Mary Peltola in a special race for the lone seat in the U.S. House for Alaska.
The win for Peltola quickly became clear on Wednesday evening, just two weeks after the polls opened up to voters first the first-ever ranked-choice voting election in the state. As a former state legislator, the Democrat candidate won against Palin and one other Republican candidate, Nick Bechich III, in the tight race.
Due to her victory, Peltola took the title of the state’s first indigenous person to be elected to Congress. She chose to campaign on fighting climate change, propping up Obamacare, standing in support of abortion rights, and defense of the extreme-left LGBTQ Equality Act.
In the wake of the votes being tallied up and Begich III being found to be in 3rd place, his vote went to the second option for the voters, which ended up giving Peltola 51.5% to Palin’s 48.5%. Sarah Erkmann Ward, a political consultant, pointed to the results from Wednesday as a “big wake-up call to Republicans” for how they should try and vote under the state’s new ranked-choice system.
“Today’s reels should illustrate to Republicans very clearly that when they choose not to rank, there’s a good possibility that when their favorite candidate is eliminated, then their vote will no longer be in the mix. That appears to be what happened here,” she stated, as reported by the Anchorage Daily News. “A certain segment of Republicans elected not to rank. That’s the consequence of not continuing on down your ballot.”
Despite Peltola taking the win over Palin in the special House race to currently fill the seat for Alaska’s sole congressional that was opened due to the death of the previous Republican seat holder Rep. Don Young, The pair will once again go head to head this coming November for the midterm elections to will determine who gets the spot for a full two-year term, reported the Anchorage Daily News. The seat had been filled by Young for well over 50 years before he passed away this past March.
While having the endorsement of former President Donald Trump for the race, Palin spent almost four times the total budget utilized by the Peltola campaign, as reported to Politico. The results come as quite a surprise to many, not only due to Republicans dominating the state for many years, but also due to Trump taking the win over Old Uncle Joe by well over 10 points in the state back in 2020.
