Mary Peltola shows commanding lead in ranked choice primary official results

With official primary election results made public, there were few surprises left as Mary Peltola emerged as the leading candidate for Alaska’s lone U.S. House of Representatives seat.
Alaska is practicing ranked choice voting in open primaries, a system approved by voters four years ago. The top four vote-getters are advancing into the general election.
 For the U.S. House of Representative vote, incumbent Mary Peltola (D) took a commanding lead with 50.89 percent of the votes cast for her. Second was Nick Begich with 26.57 percent and third was Nancy Dahlstrom with 19.9 percent. Dahlstrom dropped out of the race. The four persons on the ballot for the general election will be Peltola, Begich, Eric Hafner (D) and John Wayne Howe (Alaska Independent).
Mary Peltola decisively carried House District 39 and garnered more than 50 percent of the votes in most precincts, with the exception of Little Diomede, where she tied with Nick Begich, each receiving two votes, or 25 percent each; Marshall where she received only 45.95 percent, with Begich and Nancy Dahlstrom tied at 18.92 percent of the vote; and Shaktoolik, where she received 13 votes, or 48.15 percent, barely edging out Begich who received 12 votes, or 44.44 percent. Peltola did best in Teller, with 95 percent, or 19 votes cast for her. Begich received one vote, or 5 percent, and no other candidate secured a vote in Teller.
Regionally, Senate District T’s incumbent and lone candidate Donald “Donny” Olson (D) secured 100 percent of the 2,785 votes cast.
House District 39 saw competition as incumbent Neal Foster (D) secured 64.29 percent, or 1,057 votes, over challenger Tyler Ivanoff’s (AIP) 587 votes, or 35.71 percent. Both advance to the general election.
House District 39 voter turnout saw only 1,711 of 10,555 registered voters participate in the primary. Golovin had the highest voter turnout with 30.48 percent, or 32 voters of the registered 105. Nome saw only 13.8 percent, or 362 of 2,723 registered voters, turn out to cast their ballots. Wales had zero votes cast. Carol Beecher, director of the Division of Elections, said in an interview with the Nome Nugget that election materials had made it to Wales and an election worker was lined up to work at the poll, but when election day came, the poll didn’t open in Wales. “We were not able to get a hold of the election worker on election day,” Beecher said. She said the phones were apparently down in Wales and attempts to reach the election worker by phone, email and Facebook messages were not successful.
Alaska-wide only 17.99 percent, or 108,906 votes, were cast out of 605,482 registered Alaskan voters, making the primary election participation the third lowest since 1974. Only the year 2000 and 2016 saw worse voting participation in Alaska.