Alask Primary Results
by Sarah Frostenson
August 17, 2022
Introduction:
(FiveThirtyEight) It’ll be awhile yet before we know who won Alaska’s House special election — additional results are scheduled to be released on Aug. 23, Aug. 26 — and then on Aug. 31, when the ranked-choice tabulations should take place as all the mail ballots will be in.
But with only a few points separating former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Republican businessman Nick Begich III for second place, it’ll be important to watch how the vote tallies change. For instance, if Palin ends up finishing third, she’ll be eliminated and most of her support would likely go to Begich, leading to his election. But if Begich finishes third, his support might be split between Palin and Democratic former state Rep. Mary Peltola, who is currently in the lead, possibly helping Peltola win. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Elsewhere, in Alaska, things went largely as expected. In the regularly scheduled House primary, Palin, Begich, Peltola and former Assistant Secretary of the Interior Tara Sweeney all advanced and in the Senate primary, both Sen. Lisa Murkowski and former Alaska Department of Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka advanced. (Democrat Patricia Chesbro has just 6 percent of the vote, but is also projected to advance. The fourth candidate is yet to be determined, but will also have a small share of the vote.) And in the governor’s race, we don’t have any projections, but incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in pretty good shape, though as Nathaniel noted on the live blog, it’s possible Democratic former state Rep. Les Gara could eat into his margin signaling trouble for him in the general.
Read more here:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/ ... n-cheney/
At this writing, CNN is reporting that in the House Special Election Peltola is leading with 37.8% of the vote (58,892) Palin has 32.1% (48,304) and Begich has 28.6% (43,0380). For the Senate race, Murkowski has only a very narrow lead with 43.7% of the vote compared to Tshibaka’s 40.4%.
Source:
https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/resu ... primaries (Results of the governors’ race is also available at this CNN site. Results shown in link may differ from those cited as more votes are tabulated and reported).
Edit: For more background on the Alaskan races, here is a link to a
Courthouse News article of August 9, 2022:
https://www.courthousenews.com/first-go ... -primary/
Don't mourn, organize.
-Joe Hill