ANCHORAGE, Alaska—Democrat Mary Peltola scored an upset victory in a special election for the state’s only U.S. House seat, frustrating the efforts of Republican former Gov.
Sarah Palin
to mount a political comeback.
Ms. Palin, who was endorsed by former President
Donald Trump,
and Ms. Peltola, a former state legislator, were competing to fill the seat previously held by longtime Republican Rep.
Don Young,
who died in March and whose term expires in January. Another candidate, Republican Nick Begich III, trailed in third. All three are on the ballot again this November to run for the next term.
“We built a great deal of momentum in a short time,” Ms. Peltola said. “I plan to continue introducing myself to Alaskans and working to earn their trust.”
Ms. Peltola, a Yup’ik Eskimo, will be the first woman to represent Alaska in the House and the first native Alaskan in Congress.
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi
(D., Calif.) congratulated Ms. Peltola on her victory, praising her as a “strong, pioneering voice for Alaska.”
Officials said Wednesday that the latest round of calculations in the state’s ranked-choice voting system showed Ms. Peltola ahead by more than 5,000 votes.
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“Though we’re disappointed in this outcome, Alaskans know I’m the last one who’ll ever retreat. Instead, I’m going to reload,” Ms. Palin said in a statement. She made it clear she was ready for a rematch this fall, when the candidates will compete in the general election for the full two-year House term starting in January. But she also blamed the state’s new ranked-choice voting system for her defeat, deriding it as convoluted and confusing.
Adopted by the state’s voters in a 2020 initiative, ranked-choice voting allowed Alaskans to list the three special-election candidates in order of preference on the ballot on Aug. 16, regardless of party. Under the system, if no candidate wins 50% of the first-choice votes, the weakest candidate is eliminated and the second-choice votes on those ballots are then distributed to the remaining candidates.
Alaska has a 15-day period to complete counting votes. Headed into Wednesday’s release of the results, Ms. Peltola was in first, with about 40%, and Ms. Palin was second, with about 31%. Because no one got a majority, the third-place finisher, Mr. Begich, who received about 28% of first-choice votes, was eliminated, and his backers’ second choices were redistributed to the other candidates.
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With all first- and second-choice votes counted, Ms. Peltola had 51.5% of the vote, ahead of Ms. Palin’s 48.5%, according to election officials.
The winner will serve a few months, until the end of Mr. Young’s term in January. The same three candidates, plus Libertarian Chris Bye, will compete in the fall for a full, two-year term, also determined by the ranked-choice process.
All four general-election candidates appeared Wednesday afternoon at a forum hosted by the Alaska Oil & Gas Association in Anchorage.
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In her closing remarks, minutes before the state’s Division of Elections tabulated the results of the special election, Ms. Palin said Alaska needed bold leadership in Congress, casting herself as somebody who has nothing to lose. In conversations with Mr. Trump, she said, “He and I talked about this: When you’ve got nothing to lose, you serve the people, you fight for what’s right, and you don’t hold back.”
Mr. Trump won Alaska by about 10 percentage points in 2020, and he held rallies in the state to boost Ms. Palin, an early supporter of his.
Ms. Palin rose to prominence in 2008 as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee. But her decision to resign the governorship in 2009, and her subsequent career in reality television, made her a controversial figure. An Alaska Survey Research poll in July found that among voters who preferred to rank Mr. Begich first, 70% viewed Ms. Palin unfavorably. Just 25% had a positive opinion of her. That created an opening for Ms. Peltola, who led a coalition of tribes working to protect the state’s fisheries and pledged to work across the aisle if elected.
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At Wednesday’s forum, Mr. Begich pitched himself as a competent, pro-business conservative, and took a swing at Ms. Palin, who he has criticized for quitting the governorship and leaving Alaska to chase celebrity.
“Years of mismanagement and lack of basic understanding from career politicians have caused Alaska‘s story to get lost in the mix of clickbait reality TV and environmental-activist spin,” Mr. Begich said.
Ms. Palin defended herself and took aim at Mr. Begich.
“Negative Nick, you’re what’s wrong with politics today,” she said. “For him to suggest that I’m not a real Alaskan!”
Ms. Peltola tried to set herself apart from the fray and said she wasn’t going to bad-mouth her opponents.
“You can’t do 10 years of public service without disagreeing with half the people all the time,” she said. “I’ve got experience working across party lines with everyone and anyone, and I would love to be your representative in Washington.”
Mr. Bye urged voters turned off by the two major parties to choose him. “I refuse to hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils ever again, and I encourage you to do the same,” he said.
At the end of the forum, Ms. Palin and Ms. Peltola hugged, and Ms. Peltola shook Mr. Begich’s hand. Then the candidates hustled out of the room before the special-election results posted online. They didn’t take questions from reporters.
Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, said she expected Alaska’s new congresswoman to approach her role in Washington as she did in Juneau.
“When she was in the legislature, she wasn’t an extremist on either side of the aisle,” Ms. Moriarty said. “So I would assume that’s what she’s going to do as a representative between now and the end of the year.”
Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com and Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com
