Democrat Mary Peltola Ousted from House Seat

Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) has been surrounded by controversy from the moment she won her special election.

Peltola was facing off against former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to fill the seat of the late Rep. Don Young (R-AK).

Peltola won the special election, then the general election, but not without controversy.

Sweet Revenge

Alaska used ranked choice, so this more or less eliminates a candidate until one candidate surpasses 50% of the vote.

In the special election, Palin was joined by Nick Begich on the GOP ticket, splitting the vote.

Begich finished in third place after the first round, so the people who voted for him had their second choice count in the second round of voting.

When the second round was over, Peltola won the seat with 51.5% of the vote.

The general election for the seat went even worse for Palin, losing 54.9 to 45.1%.

Palin was visibly upset after her loss, dumbfounded that a Democrat could take that seat.

Ironically, it was Nick Begich who wound up getting revenge for Democrats to boot Peltola from the seat, and he did it without having the support of Donald Trump.

Trump had backed Lt. Governor Nancy Dahlstrom in the race, however, she finished third in the nonpartisan primary race.

Dahlstrom then backed out to unite the GOP vote behind Begich, and it worked, as he soundly defeated Peltola by more than 2% of the vote in the general election.

This is only the second time that ranked-choice has been used in the state, but there are already whispers that a ballot measure will be added in the next election to remove ranked-choice and go back to standard voting.

I get the premise of it, but it just seems unnatural that some people technically get to have a do-over if their initial candidate does not pan out.

So, I agree… ranked choice is convoluted and needs to go away.