Special elections and regular primaries for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor and lieutenant governor, and state legislative seats are on opposite sides of a two-sided ballot. It could take until Aug. 31 to find out if Palin or one of her rivals prevailed in the special election. The three candidates competing in this race are Republicans Palin and Nick Begich and Democrat Mary Peltola. The winner will serve the remainder of the late Congressman Don Young’s term. Young, a Republican, held the state’s only seat in the House for 49 years. He died in March. Alaska’s election process, which was approved by voters in 2020 and used for the first time this year, combines an open primary, in which all candidates in a race are on the ballot together, with a ranked general election. The four candidates with the most votes in each primary race advance to the November general election.
Palin file, information attacked
Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee and former governor of Alaska, renewed her “drill, baby, drill” calls for increased oil production and said she would use her connections to benefit Alaska. He said the new voter-approved election system is confusing and needs to be changed. In a recent interview with Steve Bannon, Palin described it as “the new, weird voting system we have, where it’s just mail-in ballots” and ranked the vote. Special elections are traditional in-person voting elections, and voters could request absentee ballots. It remains to be seen whether the system will negatively affect the divisive Palin, who could be a strategic voting target, or have no real impact on the bottom line. Begich, a businessman from a family of prominent Democrats, has come out hard against Palin, seeking to paint her as a fame- and resignation-seeker. Palin resigned during her term as governor in 2009. In a Begits ad, a woman says, “I’m voting for smart — not Sarah.” Palin “doesn’t have a strong record of effectively advocating for the state, and that’s not going to work for us,” Begitz said in an interview. TONIGHT: Jim and Faye Palin, Sarah Palin’s former in-laws, throw an election-eve party for Nick Begich, who is running against Palin for Alaska’s lone House seat. pic.twitter.com/wvpHY0AGOZ —@ReedReports Palin’s former father-in-law and his wife held a fundraiser the final weekend of the race for Begich, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Palin, meanwhile, questioned Begich’s Republican credentials. Peltola, a former state legislator, recently served on a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources in Alaska’s Kuskokwim River. She has described herself as “regular Alaska” and building consensus. If successful, she would be the first Alaska Native elected to the House. “Vote, vote, vote and vote twice, literally,” Peltola told supporters in Juneau days before the election, urging them to come out and tell their friends to vote.
Murkowski is fighting the Trump-backed candidate
All three said they planned to serve a full, two-year term in the House regardless of how the special election turns out. They, along with Republican Tara Sweeney, who was assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior during the Trump administration, were the most prominent candidates in a field of 22 in the U.S. House primary. Sweeney also filed just days before the special election as a write-in candidate in that race. Palin’s campaign on Friday sent out an email incorrectly stating there were no official write-in candidates in the race. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska appears during a Senate committee hearing in Washington, DC on January 11, 2022. (Greg Nash/Reuters) Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces 18 challengers in a primary in which the top four vote-getters will advance to the November general election. Murkowski, a moderate who has been in the Senate for nearly 20 years and has at times been at odds with her own party, is expected to take the top spot from Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is backed by Trump. Murkowski was one of only seven Republican senators to vote to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, but the only one to have her beliefs tested by voters in the 2022 election cycle. Trump, who was acquitted in that Senate trial after being impeached for the second time in his presidency by the Democratic-led House, lashed out at Murkowski after her vote. The most visible Democrat in the race is retired educator Pat Chesbrough, who jumped on board late and has struggled to gain fundraising traction. The rest of the contenders in the field have even lower profiles.
