Democrat Defeats Sarah Palin, Flips Congressional Seat to Blue

Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska’s sole congressional seat Wednesday, according to the Associated Press, defeating a host of Republicans on the ballot, including Sarah Palin.

The special election was held to determine who would serve for the remainder of the late Republican representative Don Young’s term. Peltola is the first Democrat to be elected as a U.S. Representative in the state since 1972, the first woman to have the seat in Alaska, and the first Alaskan native to be in the House.

The special election used ranked-choice voting, an election method approved by Alaskan residents in 2020. In ranked choice, voters rank their preferred candidates, and the candidates are gradually eliminated based on the number of first-choice preferences they received.

Palin has come out against the ranked-choice-voting system, saying, “Voters are confused and angry.”

“Today is the first test case of the crazy, convoluted, undesirable ranked-choice voting system, and to everyone who’s watching from Outside tonight, I say: Please, learn from Alaska’s mistake. Voters are confused and angry, and feel disenfranchised by this cockamamie system that makes it impossible to trust that your vote will even be counted the way you intended. We’ll keep fighting to equip Alaskans with the information they need to make sure their voices are heard amidst this Leftist-crafted system — no matter how hard the corrupt political establishment works to silence us,” Palin said.

Palin and Peltola, as well as one other candidate, will still battle it out in the November general election to fill the seat beyond Young’s term. The general election will also use ranked-choice voting.