Democrat Mary Peltola defeated former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (R) in Alaska’s special election to fill its lone vacant congressional seat, despite not receiving more than 50 percent of the initial vote.
The special election to fill Don Young’s seat was the first election Alaska voters held since ending the two-party primary system in 2020.
Alaska voters approved Ballot Measure 2 by a margin of roughly 4,000 votes in 2020, bringing the state to a ranked-choice voting system whereby voters pick the top four candidates and rank them in order of one through four.
The special election’s results came 15 days after the state held its election on August 16, in line with the state’s deadline for election officials to receive absentee ballots from outside the country. After no candidate received more than 50 percent of the first round of votes, Alaska election officials went to ranked-choice tabulations.
Sarah Palin lost to a Democrat who lost in a landslide on the first ballot. Ranked-choice voting is garbage, but Democrats united around one candidate and Republicans didn’t. This is a timely reminder of the cost of being too precious. There’s a country to save. https://t.co/BKgXzspPum
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) September 1, 2022
During the first round of voting, Republican Nick Begich received 53,756 votes, Palin received 58,945, and Peltola, the only Democrat on the ballot, earned 75,761 votes.
After Begich came in last place in the first round, his votes were redistributed to Palin and Peltola, based on which candidate the voters identified as their second pick.
Unbelievable. Mary Peltola (D) has flipped the Republican-held congressional seat in #AKAL in round 2 of ranked-choice voting, netting 51.47% to Sarah Palin's 48.53%.
Peltola got 40.20% in the first round against Begich/Palin, which was just ~2.5% shy of Biden's 2020 vote share.
— Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) September 1, 2022
Of Begich’s 53,756 votes, 27,042 were transferred to Palin, and 15,445 went to Peltola. However, an additional 11,222 Begich votes were “exhausted,” meaning the voters failed to pick a second candidate. As a result, those more than 11,000 Alaska voters’ votes were not distributed in round 2, leaving them without a meaningful vote.
Palin is on record opposing the ranked-choice voting system. “I do not believe in this system. It should not be embraced by enthusiastic participation when we know it’s not right,” Palin said.
However, she insisted she would accept the outcome of the ranked-choice system.
“I’m not going to be a stinker about this. I respect the will of the people. I will certainly ask a lot of questions on behalf of Alaskans who are concerned, but I don’t have any intention of muddying the waters and crying foul if there is not obvious proof that anything was afoul,” Palin continued. “I’m not going to just accuse anybody of nefarious actions.”
Earlier this month, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) appeared to run away from a reporter’s question about her staff members’ involvement in Ballot Measure 2 after Project Veritas released a video in which her staffers reportedly admitted the ballot measure was put on the ballot because they “wanted Lisa to get re-elected.”
BREAKING: Project Veritas Action Press Sec RC Maxwell Questions Sen. @LisaMurkowski on Secret #RankedChoiceVoting Support & Effort to Ensure Re-Election by Campaign Staffers Affiliated with Ballot Measure 2
MURKOWSKI: “Nothing can guarantee an election” pic.twitter.com/zY2bZTUziO
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 11, 2022
Peltola, who will take office until the midterm elections in November, will be the first Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress in 50 years. Peltola, Palin, and Begich will be on the ballot in the November midterms to see who will serve a full two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
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