Ballots counted so far show Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola leading in Alaska’s nonpartisan primary Tuesday, followed by Republican challenger Nick Begich III.
If the results hold, their names will appear on the November ballot, along with Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and a fourth candidate, which is too close to call right now.
With nearly all precincts counted, Peltola had 50% of the vote, Begich 27% and Dahlstrom about 20%.
The finish order is not a surprise. Begich had pledged to drop out if he finished behind Dahlstrom. But Dahlstrom made no similar pledge, so they are both likely to remain in the competition for Alaska’s sole seat in the U.S. House.
Political consultant Jim Lottsfeldt founded a pro-Peltola super PAC. He said it was a good showing for Peltola, especially since conservative voters had more of a rivalry to weigh in on.
“There was no one she had to compete with on her political spectrum, let’s say, and so there wasn’t a compelling reason for, you know, center-left folks to beat feet into this primary,” he said.
The primary prunes the list of congressional candidates from a dozen to four. Beyond that, it serves as something of a statewide poll for the November election. But Lottsfeldt said its value as a poll is limited, because a very different population of voters will turn out in November, when the presidency will be at stake.
“Maybe since we’re coming out of the Olympics, a better comparison is, it’s a 400-meter race, and this is the time split at 200 meters,” Lottsfeldt said. “And that’s interesting, but it doesn’t really tell you how the next 200 meters are going to go.”
The top-three congressional candidates are running million-dollar campaigns. Or, in the case of Peltola, a $7 million-campaign.
The fourth-place finisher could be Palmer Republican Matthew Salisbury, John Wayne Howe of the Alaska Independence Party, or Republican Gerald Heikes of Palmer, a frequent candidate who ran a low- or no-budget campaign. Heikes got a boost in name recognition in recent weeks thanks to $300,000 in negative advertising aimed at him. A pro-Peltola super PAC Lottsfeldt founded ran an ad urging voters to reject Heikes, billing him as “a conservative candidate on abortion.”
Lottsfeldt said going after an unknown candidate, and putting his name in bold next to more prominent Republicans, makes sense for his political action committee, called Vote Alaska before Party.
“It’s saying, ‘Look at the conservative candidates. They’re all terrible on abortion,’” Lottsfeldt said.
Republican strategist Matt Shuckerow suspects another motive behind the anti-Heikes ads.
“I think that’s an effort to propel him to advance to the general election,” he said. “Why would they do that? I think that they would like to … have one Democrat, Mary Peltola, run against three Republicans, so they will ultimately split the vote.”
Republicans could avoid splitting their votes in November by making use of ranked choice voting. But the voting method is deeply unpopular among conservatives and some voters refuse to do it.
Shuckerow said there’s not a lot at stake in this primary, since few races have more than four candidates, and the congressional contest has only three contenders with money to campaign on. But he thinks the primary will provide a rich trove of data for campaigns.
“It can tell you if you have a major issue that you haven’t seen, that you’re losing the confidence of votes of certain demographics, so that also is helpful,” he said. “The other thing is that the primary, in being viewed as a poll, it can show you areas where you’re weak, where you had low turnout, where you had folks in certain precincts that didn’t turn out that you needed to do better with. That’s also very important.”
The Division of Election will continue counting ballots until Aug. 30 and expects to certify the results Sept. 1.
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Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
