Democrat Mary Peltola, who is Yup'ik, will be the first Alaska Native to serve in the US House and the first woman to hold the seat.
Mary Peltola, who most recently worked for a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources on the Kuskokwim River, casts herself as a "regular" Alaskan.
(Becky Bohrer / AP)
Democrat Mary Peltola has won the special election for Alaska’s only US House seat, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.
Peltola, who is Yup'ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will become the first Alaska Native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the seat. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican US Republican Don Young's term. Young held the seat for 49 years before his death in March.
Peltola's victory, in Alaska's first statewide ranked-choice voting election, is a boon for Democrats coming off better-than-expected performances in special elections around the country following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade.
She will be the first Democrat to hold the seat since the late US Republican Nick Begich, who was seeking reelection in 1972 when his plane disappeared.
Begich was later declared dead and Young in 1973 was elected to the seat.
Peltola ran as a coalition builder while her two Republican opponents — Palin and Begich's grandson, also named Nick Begich — at times went after each other. Palin also railed against the ranked voting system, which was instituted by Alaska voters.
The results came 15 days after the August 16 election, in line with the deadline for state elections officials to receive absentee ballots mailed from outside the US. Ranked choice tabulations took place on Wednesday after no candidate won more than 50 percent of the first choice votes.
Wednesday's results were a disappointment for Palin, who was looking to make a political comeback 14 years after she was vaulted onto the national stage when John McCain selected her to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. In her run for the House seat, she had widespread name recognition and won the endorsement of former president Donald Trump.
Alaska special election results show Democrat Mary Peltola, Yup'ik, as the winner with 51.47 percent vs. 48.53 percent for Sarah Palin. That makes Peltola both the 1st woman to hold Alaska's sole Congressional seat and the 1st Alaska Native Representative to Congress.
Peltola's 'regular Alaskan' campaign
But critics questioned Palin's commitment to Alaska, citing her decision to resign as governor in July 2009, partway through her term. Palin went on to become a conservative commentator on TV and appeared in reality television programmes, among other pursuits.
Along with Peltola and Begich, Palin is among the candidates vying for a full two-year term that will be decided in the November general election.
Palin has insisted her commitment to Alaska never wavered and said ahead of the special election that she had “signed up for the long haul.”
Peltola, a former state lawmaker who most recently worked for a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources on the Kuskokwim River, cast herself as a "regular" Alaskan. "I’m not a millionaire. I’m not an international celebrity," she said.
"I’m really hopeful that voters will feel like they can vote their heart and not feel pressured to vote for the candidate that they think is most 'viable,'" Peltola said before the special election. "And my hope is that we shy away from the really extreme-type candidates and politicians."
During the campaign, she emphasised her support of abortion rights and said she wanted to elevate issues of ocean productivity and food security.
Explaining Alaska's new voting system
Alaska voters in 2020 approved an election process that replaced party primaries with open primaries. Under the new system, ranked voting is used in general elections.
Under ranked voting, ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright with more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. If no one hits that threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.
Voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their next choice. Rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes wins.
In Alaska, voters last backed a Democrat for president in 1964.
Source: AP
Reuters set the U.S. political news agenda this past weekend and exclusively revealed that Donald Trump-backed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano posed in a Confederate uniform for a 2013-14 faculty photo at the U.S. Army War College, where he worked. Obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request after reporters learned of its existence, the photo went viral on social media. The image impacted Mastriano’s campaign, exposing him to another point of attack from Democrats and some Republicans in a U.S. state that plays an outsized role in presidential politics. Even fellow Republican Larry Hogan, Maryland’s governor, said the photo could be “disqualifying” for Mastriano.
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Kari Lake has won the Republican nomination for governor in Arizona's primary election, the Associated Press called Thursday evening.
For days, the hotly contested race between former TV news anchor Kari Lake and real estate developer and Arizona Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson was too close to call as Lake's lead was fewer than 12,000 votes.
As of Wednesday morning, Lake had 46.2% of the vote, and Taylor Robson had 44.5% in the Republican primary. Lake will now look to succeed term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican.
Lake on Tuesday night predicted in a speech to supporters at a primary election night rally that she is "winning this 100%" and claimed that there's "no path to victory for my opponent. We won this race."
Former President Trump embraces Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake at a rally on July 22, 2022, in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
(Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The primary showdown turned into a bit of a proxy war between former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
The former president last year endorsed Lake, who is a strong supporter of Trump’s repeated and unproven claims that his 2020 election loss to President Biden was due to massive voter fraud.
Trump and Pence – who could potentially become rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination – were both in Arizona on the same day a week and a half ago, headlining competing campaign events.
Arizona Republican Governor candidate Karrin Taylor Robson speaks in Tucson, Arizona, July 1, 2022.
(REUTERS/Rebecca Noble)
Lake will now face off in November with Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is currently the Secretary of State of Arizona.
Hobbs easily won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in the one-time red state that has become a top general election battleground between the two major parties.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.
