Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola turned in a strong performance in Alaska’s primary election on Tuesday, winning more than half the votes cast in the race.
The win is largely symbolic under Alaska’s open primary system which will send the top four candidates to the general election regardless of political affiliation. It’s a good sign for the Democrat who’s two years removed from her meteoric rise to Congress in a 2022 special election for the seat.
The results come with the caveat that voter turnout is meager, currently at 15.94%.
Alaska’s general elections are conducted with ranked-choice voting, where voters rank candidates in case no one crosses the 50% mark. According to the latest results, Peltola has 50.38% of the vote.
As it stands, she’s looking to a general election that includes Republicans Nick Begich, who ran and lost against Peltola in 2022 and got 26.98% of Tuesday’s vote, and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who has 20.01% of the vote. The two Republicans have had an uneasy tension so far, mirroring the push between Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin in the 2022 elections that watchers say partially cost Republicans the seat.
Heading into the election, Begich had pledged to drop out if he wasn’t the top-performing Republican. Dahlstrom, who went into the primary election running a blitz of ads focusing on her endorsement from former President Donald Trump, made no such commitment.
In 2022, which was the first year conducted with open primaries and ranked-choice voting in the general election, Republicans refused to meaningfully engage with the system during the special election. That saw many Republicans not rank other Republicans, but a “Rank the Red” campaign for the general election saw better consolidation.
The fourth spot in the general election could change as more votes are counted, but Republican candidate Matthew Salisbury has the advantage with 599 votes or 0.62% of the vote. Salisbury’s platform includes outlawing bottom trawling, ending corporate home ownership and funding social security.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
