Sarah Palin will advance in Alaska’s wild House special primary election, CNN projects
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin took a step toward a political comeback Saturday, finishing in the top four of a 48-person special primary election and advancing to the August general election to fill the House seat of the late Rep. Don Young, according to a CNN projection.
Palin will be joined in the special general election on August 16 by Republican Nick Begich III, the grandson of former Democratic Rep. Nick Begich, whose plane went missing in 1972 and has never been found, as well as independent Al Gross, who lost a 2020 Senate race and has said he would caucus with Democrats, CNN projects.
Votes are still being tallied to determine the fourth slot, with two candidates who each could make history as the first Alaska Native elected to Congress — former Democratic state Rep. Mary Peltola and Republican Tara Sweeney, who was backed by a coalition of the state’s Native corporations — in fourth and fifth place among the ballots tallied so far. Santa Claus, a North Pole councilman and democratic socialist, is in sixth place.
Lawyer and gardening columnist Jeff Lowenfels, former Republican state Sen. John Coghill, Democratic Anchorage Assembly member Christopher Constant, Democratic state Rep. Adam Wool and Republican state Sen. Josh Revak, who was endorsed by Young’s widow, are also among the contenders.
The results came after one of the nation’s wildest primaries — one that featured Palin; Claus; Begich III, the Alaska Republican Party-endorsed conservative from the state’s most prominent Democratic family; and a host of former Young aides and allies.
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