Wut?

In a sign of the impending apocalypse, Democrat Mary Peltola won the Congressional special election for Alaska's single representative.

She beat Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III in a 3-way runoff using instant runoff voting.

The last time that a Democrat won a state wide race in Alaska, it was Mark Begich, Nick's uncle., and that was only after his opponent, Ted Stevens,w as convicted of corruption. (Family dinners in the Begich family must be interesting.)

The current electoral system, a jungle primary followed by a ranked choice voting general among the top 3 (or 4) primary candidates was created in an attempt to marginalize the right wing whack jobs influence in Republican Party primaries.

It appears that it worked:

Democrat Mary Peltola has won a special election for the U.S. House in Alaska, defeating Republican Sarah Palin and becoming the first-ever Alaska Native to win a seat in Congress as well as the first woman to clinch the state’s at-large district.

Peltola’s win flips a seat that had long been in Republican hands. She will serve the remainder of a term left open by the sudden death of Rep. Don Young (R) in March. Young represented Alaska in Congress for 49 years.

Peltola, who’s Yup’ik, [Eskimo, not Indian, FYI] is a tribal fisheries manager and former state representative who led in initial counts after the Aug. 16 election. But her win wasn’t assured until Wednesday, when Alaska election officials made decisive second-choice counts using the state’s new ranked-choice voting system. Republican Nick Begich III, who finished third, was eliminated, and his supporters’ second-choice votes were redistributed to the remaining candidates.

………

Peltola had nearly 40 percent of first-choice votes after preliminary counts, which put her about 16,000 votes ahead of Palin. Half of the Alaskans who made Begich their first choice ranked Palin second, and 21 percent did not make a second choice. The remaining 29 percent — a surprisingly large fraction, even to some of Peltola’s supporters — ranked Peltola second, flipping from a Republican to a Democrat. The second-choice support for Peltola was enough for her to hold off Palin, leaving the Democrat about 5,200 votes ahead.

………

Palin’s defeat comes in her first campaign since she stepped down as Alaska’s governor in 2009; former president Donald Trump endorsed her and held a rally on her behalf in Anchorage.

Mercy, Palin lost despite a Trump endorsement.  That's some strong schadenfreude/

Peltola’s campaign focused on local issues, such as what to do about declining salmon returns. She is expected to be sworn in to office in mid-September.

All to often, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) will choose a carpet-bagger who has money, or a gift for raising money who knows nothing of local issues.

This is a losing proposition.

………

Until she ran for Congress, Peltola was the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which co-manages federal salmon fisheries in a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Peltola’s Yukon-Kuskokwim region — named for two major salmon rivers that flow through the area — has seen unprecedented collapses of key subsistence salmon runs in recent years. Peltola pledged to tackle the issue if elected.

………

Forty-eight candidates ran in a special primary election in June. That race narrowed the field to four — independent Al Gross later dropped out — before the Aug. 16 general election.

Meanwhile, a regularly scheduled election is playing out to decide who will hold the same U.S. House seat for the next two years, once the rest of Young’s term concludes. The primary for that race also was held Aug. 16, and Peltola, Palin and Begich are projected to advance, according to the Associated Press. There will also be a fourth spot on the ranked-choice ballot in November.

The November election is going to be very odd, no thanks in large part to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

I am still not optimistic, but I am less pessimistic.