Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska's only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.
JUNEAU, Alaska — Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska's only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.
Peltola's victory, coming in Alaska's first statewide ranked choice voting election, is a boon for Democrats, particularly coming off better-than-expected performances in special elections around the country this year following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. She will be the first Democrat to hold the seat since the late U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, who was seeking reelection in 1972 when his plane disappeared.
The results came 15 days after the Aug. 16 election, in line with the deadline for state elections officials to receive absentee ballots mailed from outside the U.S. Ranked choice tabulations took place Wednesday after no candidate won more than 50% of the first choice votes. Peltola was in the lead heading into the tabulations.
"Though we're disappointed in this outcome, Alaskans know I'm the last one who'll ever retreat," Palin said in a statement. Peltola, a former state lawmaker who most recently worked for a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources on the Kuskokwim River, cast herself as a"regular" Alaskan."I'm not a millionaire. I'm not an international celebrity," she said.
"It's been very attractive to a lot of people to have a message of working together and positivity and holding each other up and unity and as Americans none of us are each other's enemy," she said."That is just a message that people really need to hear right now."
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