Sarah Palin loses special election for Alaska House seat
Source: CNN Politics
(CNN) Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election to fill Alaska's House seat for the remainder of 2022, according to unofficial results released by the Alaska Division of Elections, thwarting former Gov. Sarah Palin's bid at a political comeback -- at least for a few months. Peltola emerged as the victor Wednesday when Alaska's Division of Elections tabulated ranked-choice ballots in the state's first use of the system.
With her victory, the former state lawmaker will fill the remainder of the term of the late Rep. Don Young, who died in March after holding the state's House seat for 49 years, and is set to become the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress. The race for Young's seat had been viewed nationally through the lens of the attempted political comeback of Palin, who in 2008 became the Republican vice presidential nominee and, after losing, in 2009 resigned midway through her lone term in the governor's office. She has not run for office since.
But she'll get another chance at the House race -- Palin and Peltola are also among those vying to fill the full term in a separate election in November. The special election process began when a field of 48 candidates -- including Santa Claus, a North Pole councilman and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter -- was whittled down to a final four in a June primary in which candidates of all parties ran together on one ballot.
Palin; Peltola; Nick Begich III, a Republican businessman from the state's most famous Democratic political family; and independent Al Gross were the four that advanced. But shortly after the primary, Gross dropped out of the race, a move that consolidated Democratic support behind Peltola. Peltola, meanwhile, sought to seize on the Supreme Court's decision ending federal abortion rights protections, campaigning as a pro-abortion rights, pro-labor union candidate with a deep connection to issues like fishing that are closely tied to Alaska's identity and economy.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/politics/alaska-house-seat-ranked-choice-ballots/index.html
(this would at least balance Crist's resigning of his seat in FL)
= new reply since forum marked as read
Three Cheers!! 
For the people of Alaska! 
The last one, of course, was Nick Begich, who disappeared under very suspicious circumstances that year.
He'd be proud.
Thanks Alaska!
Ballotpedia says the 13th district's outcome will determine the makeup of the 118th Congress.
Lynn is up against Anna Luna (R) and four other vote siphoning candidates.
The new district map.
OP - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142963120
That map is supposedly still being litigated (I think the FL Supreme Court still has to rule on it but that is obviously a crap shoot
) Thanks for your links. I've now sent out more battleground donations than I spent as a full donor to Obama.
although have focused mostly here in PA so that we get a (D) governor and (D) Senator. I want to see how the House predictions shift to get some more there because if we lose the House, the next 2 years will mean a manufactured impeachment and all kinds of nightmarish clown shows.
My worry exactly. I've donated to Demings in FL; outside that, Marcus Flowers (v. MTG), Warnock and Abrams in GA, O'Rourke, Beasley in NC, duhneece out in NM.
If we don't keep the House, my donations will have been a net zero. Then the Jan 6 Committee will be disbanded (good lord, you had to mention their time wasting impeachmentS! 
)
For the DOJ to carry on will be a bright spot. But its current decision to hold indictments until after Nov 8 is total rule of law enforcement cowardice. When the case is this tight, it should proceed.
Not to mention the fallout charges on congressional aiders and abetters, and the accessories after the fact of each of Trump's indictment counts. Hell, most, if not all of them, will be sitting there in the 118th Congress.
OTOH, to see them indicted after having won their next terms is creepy; I picture them voting from jail, since I'm sure they'll refuse to resign.
Rethugs will be laughing that they bullied the DOJ into "not looking political" whenever a Democratic administration sits in the Executive. 
I don't know if they have explicitly said they would do that despite that OLC "memo". Especially given except for members of Congress who might be under investigation, none of the others are actually "declared candidates" running for office. 
I expect something to come of the GA probe and possibly the NY (both Manhattan and NY AG) cases before the election in any case.
THOSE state indictments will definitely help. Thanks for the hopeful reminder. 
And yes, I think we've heard from Garland that the OLC doesn't govern him, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.
I'm also hoping that women and Latinos will really turn out for House races.
Give us more of the same, please.
like all things fat ass touches. Maybe she can start a Housewives of Alaska show now and get trampled by a moose, live, on TV, please.
...is going on in Alaska?
...are we witnessing the weakening effects of inbreeding?
...you never know...
Response to BumRushDaShow (Original post)
Was just looking at this 538 piece -
By Nathaniel Rakich
Sep. 1, 2022, at 7:31 AM
For the second time in as many weeks, Democrats have won a competitive special election. And by the numbers, this win was even more impressive than last week’s victory in New York’s 19th District. On Wednesday, the Alaska Division of Elections announced that former state Rep. Mary Peltola had defeated former Gov. Sarah Palin in the special election for the state’s vacant U.S. House seat, becoming the first Alaska Native ever elected to Congress and the first Democrat to win a statewide election since 2008.
(snip)
Unsurprisingly, most of Begich’s votes (50 percent) went to his fellow Republican, Palin. But an impressive 29 percent went to Peltola, and 21 percent were “exhausted,” meaning there was no second-choice pick, and the votes were essentially thrown out. That combination was enough for Peltola to win. While Palin gained more votes from the redistribution than Peltola did, Peltola was starting from a higher total, and receiving 29 percent of Begich’s votes was enough to keep her ahead of Palin. In the end, Peltola received 51 percent of the votes counted in the final round, while Palin received 49 percent.
(snip)
Democrats have clearly overperformed in special elections since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson in June, but the reasons for Peltola’s win may have been more local than national. Namely, Palin was a very flawed candidate. After her 2008 vice-presidential campaign flopped, Palin resigned the governorship (reportedly amid ethics investigations), bought a house in Arizona and went on to appear on reality TV — giving many Alaskans the sense that she had abandoned them. According to a July poll from Alaska Survey Research, 61 percent of Alaska registered voters had a negative opinion of her. It’s hard to win with those kinds of numbers. It seems likely then, that had a different Republican advanced to the final round, Peltola would have lost. According to that same poll — which almost exactly nailed the final margin between Peltola and Palin — Begich would have defeated Peltola 55 percent to 45 percent if he had made it to the final round instead of her. That would still have been bluer than Alaska’s R+15 partisan lean, but it mostly demonstrates how much of Republicans’ underperformance here may have been due to simple candidate quality (or lack thereof).
(snip)
So it’s not clear what, if any, national lessons we can take away from the Alaska election. But that’s OK — because you should never generalize based on a single special election. They are simply too prone to idiosyncrasies such as, for example, a uniquely flawed candidate. Instead, you have to average several special elections together before they become predictive of the midterms. And when we do that, it’s clear that, no matter how you count Alaska, Democrats are punching above their weight in special elections since Dobbs. Other than Alaska, there have been four federal special elections since that June 24 decision, and Democrats did at least 6 points better than the partisan lean of the districts they ran in each election. If you plug in Alaska’s first-round numbers (the ones that are good for Republicans), the average Democratic overperformance in special elections since Dobbs is 7 points. If you use the final-round numbers (i.e., Peltola’s 3-point defeat of Palin), it’s 11 points. In other words, while Peltola’s victory is a nice morale boost for Democrats, an extra vote for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an important milestone for Alaska Natives and, of course, undoubtedly a thrill for Peltola herself, it’s also kind of beside the point for purposes of predicting the midterms.
(snip)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-democrats-win-in-alaska-tells-us-about-november/
My answer to the above "analysis" -
They have "The Narrative®" and are determined to stick with it!!!
Thx for sbaring.
I guess the bottom line is that polling is useless.
but generally help to establish trends. But how how you formulate the questions and who you consider as a "likely voter", is going to make a difference for how close the poll matches what the reality ends up being.
"How to lie with statistics" comes to mind.
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics". 
So it's over, she's the congressperson now.
it was also a parallel "primary" that will be for the full 2-year term, and Sarah Palin, Mark Begich, and Mary Peltola will be running this November (Peltola will be the "incumbent" at this point).
I did see Peltola on Alex Wagner's show last night!
