Mary Peltola, a Democrat, Defeats Sarah Palin in
Alaska’s Special House Election
Ms. Peltola notched a major upset against Ms. Palin
and will finish the remaining four months of the term of Representative Don
Young, who died in March.
Blake
Hounshell
By Blake
Hounshell
Aug. 31,
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/us/politics/mary-peltola-alaska-special-election.html
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In an upset
with the potential to reverberate nationally, Mary Peltola has won a special
House election in Alaska, according to The Associated Press, and will finish
the remaining few months of the term of Representative Don Young, who died in
March after serving nearly 50 years as his state’s lone congressman.
Ms.
Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker and Alaska Native, defeated two other candidates who survived
the raucous special primary election in June: Sarah Palin, the former Alaska
governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee, and Nicholas Begich III, a
Republican from the state’s most prominent Democratic political family. Voters
participated in a new system, ranking the three in order of preference.
Ms.
Peltola’s victory adds to a series of recent wins for Democrats, most notably
the special election for New York’s 19th Congressional District. Democrats have
grown more confident about their chances of holding on to the Senate in
November as Republicans squabble among themselves, although most acknowledge
that retaining control of the House will be more difficult.
David
Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama who is now the director of
the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, said Ms. Palin’s defeat
and the Republicans’ loss of Mr. Young’s seat “would be read as a huge victory
for Democrats and defeat for MAGA Republicans.” He added: “Obviously, there are
mitigating factors that should temper the impulse to generalize.”
At 49, Ms.
Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress and the first
woman to hold the House seat, albeit only temporarily — unless she wins a full
term in November.
She ran a
relentlessly upbeat campaign that implicitly contrasted her reputation for
kindness with the bombast and penchant for drama associated with Ms. Palin,
even though the two women have been friends since serving together in the
Statehouse as expectant mothers. They even exchanged text messages on the day
of the general election for the temporary seat, with Ms. Palin advising Ms. Peltola
to dress warmly for her final round of canvassing.
“I think
respect is just a fundamental part of getting things done and working through
problems,” Ms. Peltola told reporters as the first votes rolled in on Aug. 16.
Al Gross,
an independent candidate who previously ran for Senate in 2020 against Dan
Sullivan, a Republican, dropped out after the primary and endorsed Ms. Peltola,
who also finished ahead of write-in candidates, including Tara Sweeney, a
former Trump administration official.
Ms. Peltola
cobbled together a winning coalition in the special election by appealing to
the same independent streak and devotion to Alaskan interests that Mr. Young
was known for. Her father and the longtime congressman were close friends, and,
as a young girl, she would tag along as he campaigned for Mr. Young. But she
sharply diverges from Mr. Young and her top Republican opponents, including Ms.
Palin, in her support for abortion rights, her concern about climate change and
her calls for developing Alaska’s resources with greater sensitivity to the
needs of local communities.
Ms. Peltola
has sought to highlight her Native roots in a state where more than 15 percent
of the population identifies as Indigenous. As a Yup’ik woman, she said, she
has sought to use the teachings of her community in her broader appeals for
bipartisanship. “Dry fish and pilot bread — that is how I got other legislators
in the room when I was rebuilding the bipartisan Bush caucus,” she said in an
ad introducing herself to voters. (“Bush caucus” refers to a group of
legislators from rural Alaska.)
Ms. Peltola
served in the Alaska House from 1999 to 2009 before becoming the executive
director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which works with
tribes to manage salmon resources. She has also served as a councilwoman in
Bethel, a small city in western Alaska, and as a judge on the Orutsararmuit
Native Council Tribal Court.
She made
that experience central to her campaign message, a uniquely Alaskan appeal to
voters in a state where many rural communities depend on reliable stocks of
fish for their very subsistence. Ms. Peltola’s ads were critical of
out-of-state trawlers — high-volume fishing ships, often from China or Russia,
that sweep up prized salmon and halibut along with lower-value species such as
pollock.
The Supreme
Court’s move in June to overturn Roe v. Wade was another major theme of Ms.
Peltola’s campaign. More than 60 percent of Alaskans favor abortion rights,
breaking with the position held by Republicans like Ms. Palin, who hailed the
decision as a victory for states’ rights. Abortion remains legal in Alaska,
though the law requires that a patient receive counseling intended to
discourage the practice.
Ms. Peltola
will face voters again this fall as she tries to retain the seat in Congress
beyond the remainder of Mr. Young’s term.
Voters in
November will rank their choices from the top four finishers of the regular
primary on Aug. 16. Ms. Peltola finished ahead of Ms. Palin in that primary,
followed by Mr. Begich.
Ms. Palin’s
defeat in the special election is likely to raise doubts about her viability in
November.
Former
President Donald J. Trump visited Anchorage in July to hold a rally for Ms.
Palin, whose campaign was being managed by one of his longtime political
lieutenants, Michael Glassner. Mr. Trump hailed her as “legendary.”
At that
rally, Ms. Palin attacked Mr. Begich, her chief Republican opponent, as a
“RINO,” or Republican in Name Only. And she nodded in jest to the complaints of
her critics, who have accused her of erratic behavior and of abandoning the
state after her 2008 loss.
“We have
been mocked and ridiculed and falsely accused and told to sit down and shut
up,” she said. “The stuff that you’ve heard about me — it’s a lie. I’m way
worse than what you’ve heard.”
Mr. Trump
expended most of his energy at the rally attacking Senator Lisa Murkowski, who
broke with him frequently on abortion and other issues and who voted for his
impeachment after the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Both Ms.
Murkowski and Kelly Tshibaka, whom Mr. Trump endorsed, advanced in the state’s
Senate primary race and will face off again in November.
Mr. Trump
is a divisive figure in Alaska, which has long had an independent streak. He
remains highly popular among hard-core Republican voters but has alienated
thousands of more moderate Republicans and independents.
Although
Mr. Trump won Alaska by 10 percentage points in 2020, besting Joseph R. Biden
Jr., those results represented a decrease from his commanding 15-point victory
over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Mr. Trump’s
waning overall popularity has led some analysts to speculate that his
endorsement of Ms. Palin could do as much to mobilize his political opponents
against her this fall as it could to help her. And Ms. Palin’s starkly low
approval ratings in her quest to win Mr. Young’s former seat permanently
indicate that another candidate might squeak through in November. If the
special election and Aug. 16 primary results are any indication, Ms. Peltola
appears well positioned to do so.
Jazmine
Ulloa contributed reporting.
Blake
Hounshell is the editor of the On Politics newsletter. He previously was
managing editor for Washington and politics at Politico. @blakehounshell
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