Breaking news: Al Gross late Monday withdrew from the race for U.S. House. Gross, who had finished third in the primary election, did not give a reason for his decision. The Alaska Division of Elections on Tuesday said the August general election to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young will proceed with just three candidates, not four as had been expected. The division said state law does not allow for the fifth-place finisher, Tara Sweeney, to move up to fill out the four finalists for the general election for the seat.
The four finalists are ready for Alaska’s special election to fill the last several months of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term.
Based on results tallied through last Friday, Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III, independent candidate Al Gross and Democratic candidate Mary Peltola will be the options for Alaska’s first ranked-choice election on Aug. 16.
The winner of that election will serve in Congress until January, when the winner of the November general election will take over for a two-year term.
The Alaska Division of Elections finished counting votes week, at 161,274 ballots: Palin had 27.02% of the vote, Begich 19.13%, Gross 12.63% and Peltola 10.06%.
The margin between Peltola and the candidate in fifth place, Tara Sweeney, increased as more ballots were counted last week and had widened to almost 6,000 votes.
Peltola is a former state legislator from Bethel; Sweeney served in the Interior Department in the Trump administration.
Former governor Palin attributed her place at the top of the results to a variety of factors, including her “love and passion for Alaska” and Alaskans’ frustration with the federal government.
Gross ran his campaign with a network of supporters from his unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate two years ago. In that race, Gross won the Democratic primary as an independent and received extensive support from Democrats inside and outside the state.
The special primary election was Alaska’s first-ever statewide vote-by-mail campaign.
Peltola campaign manager Kim Jones said the numbers show most Gross supporters picked him early in the monthlong voting window. “It did take us a few weeks to get her campaign set up, and in that time, I think votes went to other candidates that will go to her in August. So I feel really good about it,” Jones said.
All four finalists will now simultaneously run in the ranked-choice special election for the unexpired term set for Aug. 16 and the primary election for a full term in the U.S. House on that same day. The top four from the August primary will go to a ranked-choice election in November.
More than two dozen candidates are running in the regular primary for the two-year term.
“This is the fun part,” Jones said. “We’re actually now running two simultaneous campaigns. We’re running for the special general, and we’re running for the regular primary.”
As of last Thursday, three Democrats who placed far back in the special-election primary field announced they are withdrawing from the race for the full term, with two of them endorsing Peltola.
Christopher Constant, an Anchorage municipal assembly member; Adam Wool, a Fairbanks legislator; and Mike Milligan, a retired construction worker in Kodiak; all said they are ending their campaigns for U.S. House. Constant and Milligan said they are endorsing Peltola. Wool said he is making no endorsement at this time.
Their withdrawal leaves Peltola as the only registered Democrat running for the seat.
The AlaskaBeacon.com is a donor-funded independent news organization in Alaska.
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