Incumbent the AP Predicts Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola Will Serve a Full Term in Alaska’s at-large District
Incumbent The Associated Press reports that Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola has defeated her general election challengers, including former Gov. Sarah Palin, to represent Alaska’s at-large congressional district for a full term in the House.
Alaska’s sole congressional district is currently represented by Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola, who was elected in an August special election to fill the remainder of former Republican Rep. Don Young’s term, which expires in January 2023.
Peltola, Palin, Republican Nick Begich, and libertarian Chris Bye were among the four candidates who advanced to the November general election in August.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting for its general House elections. This is a system that was approved by Alaskans in 2020. Before that, the state held partisan primary elections before general elections. With ranked-choice voting, all of the candidates from all of parties were on the same ballot.
Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank candidates on their ballots in order of preference. If a candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes, he or she is declared the winner of the contest. If no candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes, the contender with the fewest votes is eliminated.
After the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, voters’ second-preference choices are evaluated, and a new tally is established to determine whether a candidate in the race has received a majority of the vote. This process is repeated until a candidate receives more than half of the vote.
In an opinion piece published by the Anchorage Daily News in October, Palin said that the ranked-choice voting system, which was used for the first time in the special election won by Peltola, had “produced the travesty of sending a Democrat to Congress to represent Alaska, one of the reddest states in the country.”
In a debate at the end of last month, all of the candidates had a chance to talk about what voters were worried about, such as record-high inflation, gas prices, and the distribution of salmon, which is a big deal for Alaska’s fisheries.
Palin, who ran in the August special election to fill Young’s seat, received support from former President Donald Trump. Palin was the late Senator John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, and she previously served as governor of Alaska from 2006 to 2009.
“Inflation is at a 40-year high, and the economy is in a slump. It’s unfortunate that our president and his Democratic Party refuse to accept that we are in a recession “Palin made a remark.
“We have to drill, baby, drill,” she said. “Inflation is being driven by rising energy prices. Energy costs have an impact on everything we do and consume in America.” During the debate, Peltola agreed that the United States was in a recession and that we have “astronomically high inflation rates across the country.”
The congresswoman said, “This is especially true in Alaska when you add in the cost of shipping.” He also said, “This administration’s ineffective energy policy has contributed to inflation.”
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