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Another blow to the Republican Party in the American state of Alaska - Sarah Palin - U.S President Joe Biden - Donald Trump - Overseas Pakistanis - Pakistani Americans

The Democrat Mary Peltola has won the special election for Alaska’s only US House seat, besting a field that included the Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.

Peltola, who is Yup’ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will become the first Alaska Native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the seat. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican US Representative Don Young’s term. Young held the seat for 49 years before his death in March.

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 US Representative Nick Begich, who was seeking reelection in 1972 when his plane disappeared. Begich was later declared dead and Young in 1973 was elected to the seat.

Peltola ran as a coalition builder while her two Republican opponents – Palin and Begich’s grandson, also named Nick Begich – at times went after each other. Palin also railed against the ranked voting system, which was instituted by Alaska voters.

The results came 15 days after the 16 August election, in line with the deadline for state election officials to receive absentee ballots mailed from outside the US. 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 tabulation rounds.
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Wednesday’s results were a disappointment for Palin, who was looking to make a political comeback 14 years after she was vaulted onto the national stage when John McCain selected her to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. In her run for the House seat, she had widespread name recognition and won the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

But critics questioned her commitment to Alaska, citing her decision to resign as governor in July 2009, partway through her term. Palin went on to become a conservative commentator on TV and appeared in reality television programs, among other pursuits.

Palin’s defeat in the special election doesn’t necessarily mean she has lost her shot for the US House seat. Along with Peltola and Begich, she is among the candidates vying for a full two-year term that will be decided in the November general election.

Palin has insisted her commitment to Alaska never wavered and said ahead of the special election that she had “signed up for the long haul”.

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.
Peltola has said she was hopeful that the new system would allow more moderate candidates to be elected.

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