Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is the most prominent candidate on the ballot in Alaska to complete the remainder of the late Representative Don Young’s term, although her election to Congress is not certain.
Furthermore, the result of the race may not be known for many weeks.
First-time use of ranked-choice voting in Alaska. It enables voters to choose numerous candidates and rank them in order of preference. Unless a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the first-choice vote, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes will be removed and voters’ second choices will be redistributed among the remaining candidates.
This process of elimination and redistribution continues until a candidate has a majority — and might be postponed until absentee votes are tabulated. The deadline for receiving these ballots is August 26 — ten days following Election Day.
Palin, the Republican businessman Nick Begich, and the Democrat Mary Peltola are candidates for Young’s seat in the special election. Palin, in her first campaign since she was the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, received the most votes in the June primary for the seat. However, a July survey by Alaska Survey Research showed that Palin would be eliminated in the first round of ranked-choice voting.
Longtime Alaska pollster Ivan Moore, who conducted the Alaska Survey Research survey, predicted that Peltola would get the most first-choice votes because Begich and Palin will likely divide the Republican support.
According to him, Begich would certainly defeat Peltola following the reallocation of votes from Palin’s supporters, but if Begich is removed first and his supporters’ votes are divided, Palin would not get the majority of those votes.
“Even with this data, Sarah Palin is still seen as the frontrunner. She is not the most popular. She might very well win, but she is not the favorite “Moore stated.
Former President Donald Trump, who addressed a rally in the state in July and has criticized the ranked-choice voting system for assisting Senator Lisa Murkowski in Tuesday’s primary, has endorsed Palin.
Trump said of Murkowski, “She realized she couldn’t win a straight-up election, so she resorted to this ranked-choice nonsense.”
Tuesday, as polls were closing in Alaska, Palin issued a statement criticizing ranked choice voting “Today is the first test case of the illogical, complex, and undesired ranked-choice voting system, and to everyone watching from Outside tonight, I say: Please learn from Alaska’s error. Voters are perplexed, enraged, and disenfranchised by a system that makes it hard to believe that their vote will be tallied as intended. No matter how hard the corrupt political elite tries to silence us, we will continue to provide Alaskans with the knowledge they need to ensure that their voices are heard inside this Leftist-designed system.”
Protect Freedom PAC’s pro-Palin advertisement stresses Trump’s support for her and labels her a “America First Trump conservative.”
During the campaign, Begich and Palin have on the offense against one another. Begich has been airing an ad accusing Palin of fleeing Alaska “to become a star”; the commercial features photos of Palin’s debut on “The Masked Singer.”
Palin referred to Begich as a “RINO” — a “Republican in name only” — at a televised rally with Trump on the day of the Mar-a-Lago raid in August.
“I’ve never lived anyplace else. It amuses me that one opponent specifically attempts to foster the notion that I’m not even a native Alaskan “She said.
Peltola, a five-term state politician, has emphasized her nonpartisan credentials in advertisements running up to Tuesday. According to AdImpact, in one commercial aired since May, she asserts, “I’m the Democratic woman who can win.” In an alternate version of the advertisement, she states that she is “the sole candidate fighting for abortion rights.”
The Alaska Survey Research poll predicted that Peltola will defeat Palin in the final round of the special election.
All three candidates in the special congressional election are also on the ballot for Alaska’s upcoming congressional primary. The top four vote-getters will advance to the November general election, which will again employ ranked-choice voting.
While four candidates will progress to the general election in Alaska’s Senate race, the primary election is a two-horse struggle between far-right Trump nominee Kelly Tshibaka and moderate incumbent Lisa Murkowski.
Murkowski is a rare Senate swing vote and one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump over the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, whereas Tshibaka, a former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, is running on the premise that Murkowski has politically aided President Biden and the Democrats.
On the campaign trail, Tshibaka has voiced doubt over the 2020 election, but not as emphatically as other Trump supporters. “Despite the fact that Joe Biden is now the vice president, I feel there are still real worries about the 2020 election. These reasonable inquiries need valid responses in order to restore the public’s faith in the legitimacy of our democratic process “August 5 she told the Anchorage Daily News.
While 15 other candidates, including three Democrats, are seeking for the remaining two places on November’s ballot to battle against Murkowski and Tshibaka, Alaskan Survey Research indicated overwhelming support for the top two Republican candidates.
Murkowski leads Tshibaka by just 4.4% after second- and third-choice preferences have been assigned by ranked-choice voting. Murkowski leads Tshibaka by 52.8% to 47.8%. In other words, Alaska’s election laws benefit Murkowski by allowing some Democrats to choose her as their second option, so elevating the incumbent over the far-right opponent.
As the incumbent, Murkowski also has a substantial financial edge against Tshibaka: nearly $9.4 million raised in the 2022 cycle compared to Tshibaka’s $3.0 million. Similarly, Murkowski has outspent her opponent by almost two to one.