Democratic Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola beat out former governor and one-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to secure a full House term on Wednesday.
Earlier this year, Peltola became the first Alaska Native woman elected to Congress when she won a 48-candidate-deep field vying to finish the rest of Republican Rep. Don Young’s term after he died in March. Her win of Alaska’s only House seat, which has been held by a Republican for a half-century, gave Democrats hope the party could make inroads in Alaska. Following her victory, the Cook Political Report changed its forecast of the race from “likely Republican” to “toss-up.”
The general election rematch saw Peltola not only square off against Palin but also conservative Nick Begich III and libertarian Chris Bye.
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Under Alaska’s new election system, voters are allowed to rank their preferences in the general election, with those votes counted in successive rounds until one candidate pulls in more than 50% of the vote. The tally was released Wednesday, with Peltola winning 55% to 45% against Palin in the final round.
Following Peltola’s special election win under the new system, Palin as well as members of the Republican Party criticized ranked choice voting, with Palin calling it a “cockamamie system” that is “very, very potentially fraught with fraud.”
With less than two weeks to go before the election, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced she would cross party lines and back Peltola.
“Mary is a woman whose heart is as grounded in Alaska as anybody you’re going to find,” Murkowski said. When asked directly by reporters if she would rank Peltola first on her ballot, Murkowski responded, “Yeah, I am. I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
When asked the same question, Peltola said, “I’m voting for her, so we’re even-steven.”
Alaska pollster Ivan Moore told Politico he found “the synergy between Peltola and Murkowski [to be] very interesting.”
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“They draw from substantively contiguous voting groups predominated by Democrats and independents, political moderates, women, [abortion rights supporters], rural residents, Alaskan Natives,” he said. “I mean, that was essentially the constituency that wrote in Lisa’s name in 2010. And it is categorically the Mary Peltola constituency too. And so those two, even though they come from different parties, will feed off each other’s energy [in November] in a way that bodes very well for them.”
Peltola is a Yupik native and has worked as a herring and salmon technician for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game before turning her sights to politics. She served in the Alaska House of Representatives for a decade, beginning in 1999.
