Sarah Palin Wins Open Primary and Advances in Alaska US Rep Race Special Election

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska has won the initial round of the election to fill the House seat of the late Don Young. Palin easily won the top spot in the jungle primary with Nick Begich, the grandson of former Rep. Nick Begich finishing a distant second. Begich, unlike his grandfather is a Republican rather than a Democrat, at least in the name. Independent Al Gross was third and Democrat Mary Peltola finished fourth.

They will now move on to a ranked-choice election in August. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, the last-place finisher is dropped and their votes go to whomever the voters had as their second choice. If no one st2ill does not have 50% of the vote the third-place candidate is dropped and their votes go to the second choice until a winner is declared. The term will end in early January of 2023 when the winner of the regular general election is seated unless the special election winner and the regular general election winner are one and the same.

Here is how the voting in the jungle primary went:

Palin was John McCain’s running mate for president in 2008, but she was saddled with a squishy candidate and the ticket never had a chance, especially with the totally incompetent Steve Schmidt who was running the campaign. He was never again offered a job in his chosen field, and so he was relegated to becoming a NeverTrump tool of the left.

From The Washington Times

The special election race is serving as a test case for the state’s new system of open primaries and ranked-choice voting which voters narrowly approved in a 2020 referendum.

If a candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, then that person will win the race outright.

Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those votes shift toward the next choice on each voter’s ballot.

The ranked-choice process repeats itself from there until a candidate captures a majority. The winner of the special election will serve out the remainder of Mr. Young’s term, which ends in January.