The winner of the race for Alaska’s at-large U.S. House seat will likely not be known until closer to the end of the month due to the way the state counts some absentee ballots and its new ranked-choice voting system.
SARAH PALIN ATTEMPTS POLITICAL COMEBACK IN ALASKA HOUSE RACE
The special election, prompted by the death of Alaska’s longtime GOP Rep. Don Young earlier this year, includes a comeback attempt by ex-Gov. Sarah Palin, who became a conservative media personality after an unsuccessful vice presidential bid in 2008, more than a decade after she left office in 2009.
The House race also included Republican businessman Nick Begich III and Democrat Mary Peltola. Independent candidate Al Gross, who emerged from the primary as well, said shortly thereafter that he would withdraw.
Republicans Palin and Nick Begich III and Democrat Mary Peltola advanced to the November general election in the primary race to serve the full two-year term for the same House seat.
Alaska held its U.S. Senate primary and a special House election on Tuesday, test cases for the Frontier State’s new voting system, which allows four candidates to advance from a primary election.
The state’s Division of Elections must count every ballot before it begins tabulating ranked votes. The state permits ballots mailed from overseas voters to be accepted until Aug. 31 as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
Unless the top vote-getter in the U.S. House race has more than 50% of the vote once all initial ballots are counted, which appears unlikely based on initial returns, the elections division will then count voters’ ranked choices, after which the last-place candidate is eliminated, with his or her voters’ subsequent choices going to their next choice’s tally. The process goes on for as many rounds as it takes until one candidate reaches a 50%-plus-one-vote threshold and is declared the winner.
The division expects to certify its House special election results on Sept. 2, according to local media.
In the Senate race, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) advanced in a crowded open primary in a contest that pitted the centrist Republican against a Trump-backed challenger.
Seeking reelection to a seat she has held for nearly two decades, Murkowski faced more than a dozen opponents in a so-called jungle primary, including Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who has targeted lawmakers who backed his impeachment in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Trump held a rally with Tshibaka and Palin last month in Anchorage. Tshibaka also advanced to the general election as one of the top four vote-getters in the primary.
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Alaska Daily News reported that Young’s former office officially closed on Tuesday, with his remaining staffers taken off the payroll. The office will remain vacant for several weeks until the winner of the special House election is sworn in, likely next month. Young’s former chief of staff Alex Ortiz told the outlet that Alaskans in need of constituent services in the interim should contact Murkowski’s or Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R) offices until their new representative is sworn in.
