As voting in Alaska’s special U.S. House race closed Tuesday — the state’s first election — Democrat Mary Peltola led Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III in the first returns for the most first-place votes, but a winner will not be known until the final ballots are counted later this month. As of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Alaska Department of Elections has counted nearly 120,000 ballots in the race to determine Alaska’s next representative in Congress, in a special election to replace 49-year-old Rep. Don Young, who died unexpectedly in March. The Department will continue to accept ballots until August 31st as long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day. Once the final ballots are counted — if no candidate exceeds the 50 percent threshold required to win under the state’s new ranked-choice voting system — the candidate in last place will be disqualified, and the second-place votes of that candidate’s supporters will be redistributed. With 224 of 402 districts reporting, additional results are expected throughout the night. All three candidates running in the special election are also running in the general election to fill the next U.S. House term that begins in January. All three are expected to advance to the November general election. [Election results from the Division of Elections] Peltola, a former Yup’ik state congressman from Bethel and the only Democrat in the race, led early with 37 percent of the first-place vote. Palin, buoyed by her name recognition, was in second place with over 33% of the first-place vote. Begich, a businessman making his first run for statewide elected office, was in third place with just under 29 percent. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin greets supporters and applauds motorists on the Parks Highway in Wasilla on August 16, 2022. (Marc Lester/ADN) U.S. Congressional candidate Nick Begich III waves signs at the intersection of Benson Boulevard and Seward Highway on Election Day, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, in Anchorage. (Lauren Holmes / ADN) With many votes to be counted, about 1 percent of voters threw their support behind write-in candidates, which included — among others — moderate Republican Tara Sweeney, an Iñupiaq whose six-figure campaign has backed Alaska Native corporations. Because write-in candidates did not receive significant support, their second-place votes will be distributed among the remaining candidates once the Elections Department begins tallying votes after the last ballots are counted. [Photos: Election day in Alaska] The results of the special US House race are not expected to be certified until September 2. Once the results are certified, the winner of the race will be sworn in to serve the final four months of Young’s term. But at the same time, the new US representative will likely be campaigning ahead of the November election. In the primary election that will determine which candidates appear on the November ballot, the top vote-getters so far have been Peltola with 34%, Palin with nearly 32% of the vote, Begich with 27% and Sweeney with 3%. Clear leaders emerged from a field of 22 candidates. With two weeks to go before ballots are counted in the special election, the race will be decided by the number of voters who listed more than one candidate in the state’s first-choice ballot. Palin has a devoted following, but she is also resented by many longtime Alaskans who remember her decision to quit the governorship and become a reality TV star. Begich is running with the support of the Alaska Republican Party establishment, but is battling a relationship with his Democratic uncle, former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich. Either Begich or Palin would have to rely on second-place votes to overtake Peltola on the ranking board. While proponents of ranked-choice voting say it reduces negative campaigning — with candidates running for their opponents’ second place — this race defied that expectation. Palin and Begić spent the final weeks of the campaign mounting increasingly negative attacks on each other. Palin called Begich “Negative Nick” in a recent attack ad. Begich spent the last night before Election Day at a fundraiser in Wasilla hosted by Palin’s ex-husband’s father and stepmother. On Election Day morning, Palin waved a campaign sign at a Wasilla intersection next to a Begich supporter holding a large “Where’s Palin” poster. Later that day, Palin blasted the electoral system and attacked Begich for his negative campaign. “If the other opponent had run a positive and honest campaign and his rhetoric wasn’t so misleading, I think I and so many others would have a different view of how things might turn out tonight with the vote count,” he said. Palin while waving campaign signs in Wasilla. Begić defended his attacks on Palin as “a classic part of the campaign.” “You inform the public about yourself, your policies, your background, and you inform the public about yourself, the policies and the background of your opponents,” Begich said the night before the election. But Begich has echoed the Alaska Republican Party’s message: “Class it red.” He said Tuesday that he ranked Palin second and wrote in one candidate as his third choice: “Donald Duck Jr.” Palin said she did not rank any other candidates but herself. “I don’t believe in this system. It should not be embraced by enthusiastic participation when we know it is not right,” he said. While she continued to attack ranked voting, she said she would accept the results even if they are not in her favor. “I’m not going to be a stinker about it. I respect the will of the people. I will certainly be asking a lot of questions on behalf of concerned Alaskans, but I have no intention of muddying the waters and crying foul unless there is clear evidence that something was wrong,” he said. “I’m not going to accuse anyone of lewd actions.” Peltola said ranked-choice voting has made “all the candidates a little nicer.” While Palin and Begich have attacked each other, Peltola said she thought it “could have been worse” without ranked-choice voting. • • • Reporters Marc Lester and Nat Herz contributed to this story. This is a developing story and will be updated. • • •
