A new poll from Alaska Survey Research conducted in early July — from July 2 to July 5 — among 1,201 likely voters found Sarah Palin appears likely to lose the race for the U.S. House seat for which she’s running.
The upcoming election will be held in August after Don Young, who formerly held the seat, died in March. The poll found that under Alaska’s new ranked choice voting system, under which voters can select their secondary choices for the event their first preference doesn’t win, Palin would be eliminated in the first round. In the poll results for that first round, Palin had 29 percent of the support, fellow GOP contender Nick Begich III had 31 percent, and Mary Peltola, a Democrat, had 40 percent. Removing Palin from the running and distributing her supporters’ votes to what would seemingly be their second choices leaves Begich with 57 percent and Peltola with 43 percent. In a hypothetical scenario in which it’s Palin who moves to the second round and Begich’s supporters whose votes are redistributed, she still loses. That hypothetical second round had Palin with 49 percent and Peltola with 51 percent.
Those poll results are rounded. Under Alaska’s new system, a candidate must surpass 50 percent of the vote to win. If nobody reaches that, the last-place finisher is eliminated from consideration, and votes are tabulated again. That’s what it means for the election to go from one round to another and so on. The winner of the forthcoming election will only serve for the remainder of Young’s final term, which ends in January. On the same day voters participate in the general election whose winner will serve the final portions of that term, it’ll also be Election Day in the primary for the next full term as Alaska’s sole U.S. House Representative. Alaska now conducts a primary election in which all declared and eligible candidates are considered alongside one another, and the top four finishers move on to the general election. In the race for Young’s seat under consideration in the poll, the fourth top finisher — independent Al Gross — withdrew and endorsed Peltola, who’s a former state Representative in Alaska.
Palin has the support of the Trumps — well, at least Donald and Don Jr. — in the ongoing Congressional race. “Sarah has been a champion for Alaska values, Alaska energy, Alaska jobs, and the great people of Alaska,” Donald said in his endorsement for Palin. “She was one of the most popular Governors because she stood up to corruption in both State Government and the Fake News Media.” It continues from there. Trump, no matter his grandstanding, doesn’t have a foolproof endorsement record: whenever he goes on about how well his endorsements have supposedly turned out, it’s worth noting his very prominent support of David Perdue in the Republican primary for Georgia’s governorship didn’t stop Perdue from losing by almost 52 percent.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons license
