Contests in Alaska’s Senate, House and gubernatorial races were called on Wednesday, more than two weeks after Election Day.
Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was defeated in her latest attempt at a political comeback, losing the race for the at-large district of Alaska to Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK). Peltola previously won the congressional special election race late in the summer to end the term of the representative. Don Young (R), who died in March. She is the first Native Alaskan to serve in Congress.
“we’ve done!!!” Peltola said in a Tweet Celebrating his victory on Wednesday. She defeated Palin by nearly 23,000 votes, or 54.9% to 45.1%.
In the state Senate race, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski defended her Trump-endorsed opponent Kelly Tshibaka in a bid to win re-election to her seat.
The centrist Murkowski, who had been first elected to the Senate 20 years earlier, won the ranked-choice election with 53.7% of the vote to Tshibaka’s 46.3%.
“Thanks, Alaska,” Murkowski Told In a tweet on Wednesday. “I am honored that Alaskans – of all regions, backgrounds and party affiliations – have once again given me the confidence to continue working with them and on their behalf in the US Senate. I look forward to continuing the important work ahead of us.” Looking forward to.”
Finally, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy was declared the winner of his re-election race against Democrat Les Gara and independent Bill Walker. Dunleavy won with over 50% of the first choice vote.
In 2020, Alaska voters approved a change to a ranked-choice voting system. Under the new system, the top four finishers in states begin primary elections for the general election, where voters rank those four candidates from first choice to fourth choice.
Ranked choice voting was used this year for the first time in the state’s electoral history.
After the November 8 midterm elections, Palin was first to sign a petition To repeal ranked-choice voting initiated by the group Alaskans for Honest Government.