Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Mary Peltola win reelection, in double defeat for Donald Trump

Alaska’s Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkows­ki has been reelect­ed to a fourth term and rook­ie Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mary Per­to­la has won a full House term, suc­ceed­ing the late Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Don Young, with final vote counts announced Tues­day by Alas­ka elec­tion offi­cials. The results are the first gen­er­al elec­tion yield of the The Last Fron­tier’s new ranked choice vot­ing system.

The out­comes marked a dou­ble defeat for Don­ald Trump, who has had a Novem­ber to remem­ber. Trump had endorsed and cam­paigned in Alas­ka for Murkowski’s Repub­li­can chal­lenger Kel­ly Tshiba­ka, and for Sarah Palin’s spe­cial and gen­er­al elec­tion bids for the state’s at-large House seat.

It was Palin’s first run for office since quit­ting as Gov­er­nor in 2009, to cash in on celebri­ty sta­tus gained as Repub­li­cans’ 2008 vice pres­i­den­tial nominee.

Inde­pen­dent mind­ed, will­ing to work across the aisle, Murkows­ki earned the loathing of Trump. She vot­ed to impeach the 45th Pres­i­dent after the Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021 insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol. She has also worked to fash­ion bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion like the Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act, which will invest bil­lions into Alas­ka projects rang­ing from broad­band access to bet­ter fer­ry service.

Under Alaska’s ranked choice sys­tem, adopt­ed by vot­ers in 2020, the state aban­doned par­ti­san pri­maries. All can­di­dates now appear on a jun­gle style August qual­i­fy­ing bal­lot. The top four vote get­ters advance to the Novem­ber bal­lot. If no can­di­date reach­es fifty per­cent, the can­di­date with the least amount of votes is elim­i­nat­ed and votes trans­ferred to their sup­port­ers’ sec­ond choice.

The sys­tem works for coali­tion builders, and against polar­iz­ing can­di­dates. Murkows­ki ran bare­ly ahead of Tshiba­ka as first place choic­es were tabulated.

But Murkows­ki was the over­whelm­ing sec­ond choice of vot­ers who sup­port­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Pat Ches­bro, third place fin­ish­er in the Sen­ate race.

“I am hon­ored that Alaskans – of all regions and back­grounds, and par­ty affil­i­a­tions, have once again grant­ed me their con­fi­dence to con­tin­ue work­ing with them and on their behalf in the U.S. Sen­ate,” Murkows­ki said in a vic­to­ry statement.

Unlike some Trump-backed can­di­dates, Tshiba­ka did concede.

In a long state­ment, she thanked Trump – and God – while denounc­ing ranked choice vot­ing as “an incum­bent pro­tec­tion sys­tem” and “an absolute des­e­cra­tion of democracy.”

Murkows­ki lost a 2010 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry to Tea Par­ty-backed can­di­date Joe Miller. She won her way back to the Sen­ate with an unprece­dent­ed, his­to­ry-mak­ing write-in cam­paign, backed by Alas­ka Native cor­po­ra­tions, labor unions (main­ly teach­ers), vot­ers in the Alas­ka bush, and mod­er­ates. She reassem­bled prac­ti­cal­ly the same coali­tion this year. Murkows­ki was cen­sured by the Alas­ka Repub­li­can Par­ty after her impeach­ment vote. The par­ty backed Tshibaka.

One new force: Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell sup­port­ed Murkows­ki and spent mil­lions from his PAC to air anti-Tshiba­ka TV spots. McConnell drew steamy denun­ci­a­tions from MAGA Repub­li­cans: Tshiba­ka accused him of want­i­ng “a Sen­ate minor­i­ty that he can con­trol as opposed to a major­i­ty he could not.”

Murkows­ki endorsed Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­league Pel­to­la, who bare­ly missed a major­i­ty in the first round and eas­i­ly out­paced Palin by 55% to 45% (a ten point mar­gin) when vot­ers’ sec­ond choic­es were count­ed. “It’s a two-year con­tract: I will be hap­py to work for Alaskans again, as long as they will have me,” she said.

Talk­ing to the Anchor­age Dai­ly News, Pel­to­la added: “I think it says that Alaskans are ready for an Alaskan to rep­re­sent them who isn’t spout­ing the canned mes­sages we hear nation­wide.” She hails from the rur­al town of Bethel.

Pel­to­la is a for­mer state leg­is­la­tor who has devel­oped exper­tise in man­age­ment of The Last Fron­tier’s salmon and her­ring fishery.

The crusty Don Young rep­re­sent­ed Alas­ka in the House for forty-nine-plus years, from 1973 to this past spring when he died on a Seat­tle-bound Alas­ka Air­lines flight. Peltola’s father once worked with Young, and the new House mem­ber smart­ly kept for­mer Young aides on her staff.

Both Murkows­ki and Pel­to­la sup­port repro­duc­tive rights: Murkows­ki has indi­cat­ed open­ness to leg­is­la­tion that would cod­i­fy abor­tion rights nationwide.

Murkows­ki was also the sec­ond Repub­li­can sen­a­tor (after Ohio’s Rob Port­man) to come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

Murkows­ki has been both a col­lab­o­ra­tor and adver­sary of Washington’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell. The two “gen­tle­ladies,” as they are called in the Sen­ate, have worked suc­cess­ful­ly to get con­struc­tion under­way on a new heavy-duty polar ice­break­er, and design of a second.

They also worked on leg­is­la­tion that per­ma­nent­ly autho­rized and fund­ed the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund, in which fed­er­al oil and gas rev­enues are used to acquire wildlife habi­tats and recre­ation lands.

Cantwell is a long­time cham­pi­on of the fund. Murkows­ki vot­ed to con­firm Pres­i­dent Biden’s nom­i­nee, Deb Haa­land, as U.S. Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary. Haa­land is the first Native Amer­i­can to hold the nation’s top land man­age­ment job.

Murkows­ki is, how­ev­er, a defend­er and advo­cate for Alaska’s pow­er­ful oil and gas indus­try. Under Trump, she found a back­door way to open the Arc­tic Refuge to oil lease sales. (Major com­pa­nies have declined to bid.) She has cham­pi­oned the Wil­low Project, an effort by Cono­co to devel­op an oil field west of Prud­hoe Bay.

Alaska’s Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Mike Dun­leavy did not need ranked choice to win a sec­ond term. He took just over 51 per­cent of the gen­er­al elec­tion vote. Repub­li­cans won a nar­row major­i­ty in the state House of Representatives.

A coali­tion of Democ­rats and rea­son­able Repub­li­cans is expect­ed to run the Alas­ka State Sen­ate for the next two years.

The losers in Alas­ka are not about to lie down. Last week, Sarah Palin became the first per­son to sign an ini­tia­tive peti­tion to repeal ranked choice voting.