AK-AL Special election: Peltola wins!

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After the death of Alaska's at-large congressman Don Young, there will be a special election held a few months before the November election.

2020 Senate nominee Al Gross is running on the Democrat side.

On the Republican side, Nick Begich III (nephew of former Senator Mark Begich and grandson of Young's predecessor Nick Begich) is running, who originally intended to primary Young.

https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1506027078982017027
Sarah Palin also has expressed interest in a run. Her popularity in the state would probably make it safe for Republicans, and if she runs she's a lock on the primary (she's extremely popular and also Trump would endorse her).

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How do you know Palin is even still thought of in Alaska?

Well she's a popular former governor, and she has near-100% name recognition.

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How do you know Palin is even still thought of in Alaska?

Well she's a popular former governor, and she has near-100% name recognition.

Name recognition doesn’t always mean popular.

She left office with a very high approval rating.

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How do you know Palin is even still thought of in Alaska?

Well she's a popular former governor, and she has near-100% name recognition.

Name recognition doesn’t always mean popular.

She left office with a very high approval rating.

This is ten years later.

Well is there any reason to believe she's not popular?

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How do you know Palin is even still thought of in Alaska?

Well she's a popular former governor, and she has near-100% name recognition.

Name recognition doesn’t always mean popular.

She left office with a very high approval rating.

This is ten years later.

Well is there any reason to believe she's not popular?

Is there any reason to believe she’s that popular?

If a governor leaves office with a sky-high approval rating, I think its better to assume they're popular than unpopular until proven otherwise.

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Ugh, that's the one that was still missing in the next congress. MTG, Boebert, Gaetz, Cathron, Gosar and now Palin. This is going to be a heck of a GOP caucus.

On the bright side, at least Mo Brooks leaves office.

Who knows what could happen?
Also there are like 30 other Mo Brooks-types likely to win open seats or defeat vulnerable democrats, so even if he does don't take that as a win.

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I think the filing deadline for the special election is tomorrow… Palin hasn’t announced yet. I’m assuming she doesn’t run, but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Maybe she's just running for the general election in November, idk, she could just be trying to get attention.

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https://twitter.com/jwpetersNYT/status/1510044599393427461
Palin's name is not on the official list yet and today is April 1 but.....

I wouldn't think an NYT Journalist would do an April Fool's joke right?

It's real.

The seat is hers and I expect a Trump endorsement soon too. It'll really be something to have Sarah Palin in Congress lmao.

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https://twitter.com/CATargetAlt/status/1510046160102199297
For anyone who doubts.

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I think Palin will be the clear frontrunner, given her name recognition. Yes, she left office unpopular, but that was over a decade ago. She will fit in well with today's Republican Party, and I expect she'll get the Trump endorsement.

Actually she left office with a positive approval rating (54%), not nearly close to the >90% approval rating when she was first sworn in, but not unpopular.

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I think Palin will be the clear frontrunner, given her name recognition. Yes, she left office unpopular, but that was over a decade ago. She will fit in well with today's Republican Party, and I expect she'll get the Trump endorsement.

The Trump endorsement means nothing in Alaska. Otherwise we wouldn’t have Lisa Murkowski in the Senate.

Murkowski hasn't been up for re-election since Trump was elected so his endorsement hasn't been tested yet.

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I think Palin will be the clear frontrunner, given her name recognition. Yes, she left office unpopular, but that was over a decade ago. She will fit in well with today's Republican Party, and I expect she'll get the Trump endorsement.

The Trump endorsement means nothing in Alaska. Otherwise we wouldn’t have Lisa Murkowski in the Senate.

Murkowski hasn't been up for re-election since Trump was elected so his endorsement hasn't been tested yet.

Is there a chance she loses the seat?

Yes. I'm not saying it's likely but it will be close either way.

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I think Palin will be the clear frontrunner, given her name recognition. Yes, she left office unpopular, but that was over a decade ago. She will fit in well with today's Republican Party, and I expect she'll get the Trump endorsement.

The Trump endorsement means nothing in Alaska. Otherwise we wouldn’t have Lisa Murkowski in the Senate.

Murkowski hasn't been up for re-election since Trump was elected so his endorsement hasn't been tested yet.

Is there a chance she loses the seat?

Yes. I'm not saying it's likely but it will be close either way.

What needs to happen in order for Palin to lose the seat?

Oh I was talking about Murkowski.
Palin is very likely to win the seat, the only way she could lose is if she and a more moderate R like Begich made the final round and she gets eliminated.

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I think Palin will be the clear frontrunner, given her name recognition. Yes, she left office unpopular, but that was over a decade ago. She will fit in well with today's Republican Party, and I expect she'll get the Trump endorsement.

The Trump endorsement means nothing in Alaska. Otherwise we wouldn’t have Lisa Murkowski in the Senate.

Murkowski hasn't been up for re-election since Trump was elected so his endorsement hasn't been tested yet.

Is there a chance she loses the seat?

Yes. I'm not saying it's likely but it will be close either way.

What needs to happen in order for Palin to lose the seat?

Oh I was talking about Murkowski.
Palin is very likely to win the seat, the only way she could lose is if she and a more moderate R like Begich made the final round and she gets eliminated.

Is Begich really a moderate? He was challenging Don Young from the right.

Compared to Palin.

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https://twitter.com/politicoalex/status/1510782749107437572?s=20&t=hX8sHzRmj...

No surprises here, he asked her to run after all.

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Looks like Palin has Nikki Haley’s endorsement. Not a surprise, since Palin’s endorsement of Haley in 2010 helped her win the Gubernatorial primary:

https://twitter.com/nikkihaley/status/1510618440654069767?s=21&t=pUipnfYWxUS...

I do wonder if this means there’ll be no resistance to her candidacy from the GOP establishment.

It really shows how much even the GOP establishment has moved to the right since McCain in 2008 and the Trump presidency. In 2010, Palin would have Boehner and maybe McConnell wanting someone to try to stop her from the center.

I don't understand this idea that Sarah Palin is some far-right crazy person. She was McCain's VP for crying out loud, picked out by the Lincoln Project guys. She seems like a generic tea party era conservative who doesn't hold any uniquely controversial views within the party, other than being vaguely anti-establishment. Seems more like the typical liberals are branding her that way because they hate her and think she's gaffe prone (which, she may be). But ideology isn't style.

She's not that far-right, but she's pretty dumb and liberals really hate her. I honestly think she will end up being pretty right-wing in Congress, but mostly because she isn't too intelligent and would probably end up adopting more Trumpist views to fit in with the new "anti-establishment" of the party.

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Here’s the official Trump endorsement of Palin:

https://twitter.com/sarahpalinusa/status/1510789098059059200?s=21&t=Pdw_q5ij...

Does this help or hurt her?

Helps her consolidate the Republican vote.

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Here’s the official Trump endorsement of Palin:

https://twitter.com/sarahpalinusa/status/1510789098059059200?s=21&t=Pdw_q5ij...

Does this help or hurt her?

Helps her consolidate the Republican vote.

How does that affect her chances of actually winning the race?

Helps her since Alaska is probably an R+20 state in this environment.

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Here’s the official Trump endorsement of Palin:

https://twitter.com/sarahpalinusa/status/1510789098059059200?s=21&t=Pdw_q5ij...

Does this help or hurt her?

Helps her consolidate the Republican vote.

How does that affect her chances of actually winning the race?

Helps her since Alaska is probably an R+20 state in this environment.

But the top four system would complicate things. That would allow consolidation of the anti-Palin vote.

Not if Republicans prefer Palin over Gross (who is the likely main opponent to Palin). Palin probably gets over 40% of the first-round vote, and using the same logic you used with the TX-03 primary, she doesn't need too much more to win the whole thing.
There are way more Republicans than Democrats in Alaska, and many people not voting for Palin just prefer someone like Begich, but they would vote Palin over a liberal. This is an open race, the people not voting for Palin aren't necessarily "anti-Palin".
There are more people in Alaska who would vote for Palin over a democrat, than there are people so anti-Palin they would vote for Al Gross.

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Here’s the official Trump endorsement of Palin:

https://twitter.com/sarahpalinusa/status/1510789098059059200?s=21&t=Pdw_q5ij...

Does this help or hurt her?

Helps her consolidate the Republican vote.

How does that affect her chances of actually winning the race?

Helps her since Alaska is probably an R+20 state in this environment.

But the top four system would complicate things. That would allow consolidation of the anti-Palin vote.

Not if Republicans prefer Palin over Gross (who is the likely main opponent to Palin). Palin probably gets over 40% of the first-round vote, and using the same logic you used with the TX-03 primary, she doesn't need too much more to win the whole thing.
There are way more Republicans than Democrats in Alaska, and many people not voting for Palin just prefer someone like Begich, but they would vote Palin over a liberal. This is an open race, the people not voting for Palin aren't necessarily "anti-Palin".

What I meant was the possibility of a non-Palin Republican with a Murkowski-style coalition winning.

Doubtful. Palin will get the vast majority of Republicans and most democrats will go to Gross. The only other major Republican in the race is Begich, and he's not even moderate. He was already running before to primary Don Young from the right after all.

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Here’s the official Trump endorsement of Palin:

https://twitter.com/sarahpalinusa/status/1510789098059059200?s=21&t=Pdw_q5ij...

Does this help or hurt her?

Helps her consolidate the Republican vote.

How does that affect her chances of actually winning the race?

Helps her since Alaska is probably an R+20 state in this environment.

But the top four system would complicate things. That would allow consolidation of the anti-Palin vote.

Not if Republicans prefer Palin over Gross (who is the likely main opponent to Palin). Palin probably gets over 40% of the first-round vote, and using the same logic you used with the TX-03 primary, she doesn't need too much more to win the whole thing.
There are way more Republicans than Democrats in Alaska, and many people not voting for Palin just prefer someone like Begich, but they would vote Palin over a liberal. This is an open race, the people not voting for Palin aren't necessarily "anti-Palin".

What I meant was the possibility of a non-Palin Republican with a Murkowski-style coalition winning.

Doubtful. Palin will get the vast majority of Republicans and most democrats will go to Gross. The only other major Republican in the race is Begich, and he's not even moderate. He was already running before to primary Don Young from the right after all.

What do you expect the breakdown to be between Palin, other Republicans, and Democrats in the first round?

40% Palin
32% Gross
17% Moderate Republicans
10% Begich/other Trumpy Republicans
4% Other dems

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State GOP endorses Begichhttps://mobile.twitter.com/NBegich/status/1517540592774836224?cxt=HHwWgMCjyZ_IsY...

The Alaska establishment seems to be coalescing around Begich (funny since originally Begich was primarying Young). We'll see if it's enough to stop Palin, as most polls have shown Palin ahead of other GOP challengers (and even one showing Palin with over 50% of the Republican vote, essentially guaranteeing her in the top 2 with Gross).
Unlike with the Senate race, a democrat or Gross is likely to make it to the final round of RCV, so the winner is likely whichever Republican can get more than 50% of the Republican vote.
Trump is expected to campaign in Alaska so that might boost Palin.

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State GOP endorses Begichhttps://mobile.twitter.com/NBegich/status/1517540592774836224?cxt=HHwWgMCjyZ_IsY...

The Alaska establishment seems to be coalescing around Begich (funny since originally Begich was primarying Young). We'll see if it's enough to stop Palin, as most polls have shown Palin ahead of other GOP challengers (and even one showing Palin with over 50% of the Republican vote, essentially guaranteeing her in the top 2 with Gross).
Unlike with the Senate race, a democrat or Gross is likely to make it to the final round of RCV, so the winner is likely whichever Republican can get more than 50% of the Republican vote.
Trump is expected to campaign in Alaska so that might boost Palin.

You don’t think Pat Chesbro will make the runoff for the Senate?

I think Gray-Jackson could have made the final 2, but I don't think Chesbro will, she's a nobody.
In fact I think the Democratic party put her in on purpose to boost Murkowski. If Murkowski gets into the final 2 with Tshibaka, she relies almost entirely on Democrats to win. Chesbro will boost democratic turnout, and those democrats will likely place Murkowski 2nd.

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Gross dropping out helps Palin. Unified dem vote means a D is likely to make it into the final round. As Palin is ahead of other Republicans, it likely means a victory for her.

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Obviously, D's are uniting behind Nick Begich just like in UT with Evan McMillan, when Elvi Gray-Jackson dropped out AK became safe R

Palin isn't a shoe in Begich can win in the end

People assuming dems will vote for Begich have literally no idea about this race and just assume the non-Trump endorsed candidate is a moderate. Begich is further right than Palin and has attacked her from the right, he's literally appeared on Infowars and is the "Club for Growth" candidate.