Palin Would Be ‘Honored to Serve’ Alaska in Congress, but Honored Enough To Run?

Alaska’s current governor, Mike Dunleavy, made it clear that appointing a replacement for Young is not an option. He said a special election will be held this summer to fill the seat.

Governor Palin. AP/Brynn Anderson

A former Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, says she would eagerly fill the shoes of Don Young, the Alaska congressman who died suddenly last week — if asked.

Governor Palin did not say, however, whether she would be willing to work in order to win Alaska’s only seat in the House of Representatives — which she would now have to do if she is serious.

In an appearance on Newsmax TV, the former Alaska governor said she would be honored to fill Young’s “huge shoes” if the request were made. “If I were asked to serve in the House and take his place, I would be humbled and honored and I would,” Ms. Palin said. “In a heartbeat, I would.”

Alaska’s current governor, Mike Dunleavy, on Tuesday made it clear that appointing a replacement for Young is not an option. He said a special election will be held this summer to fill the seat.

Political leaders in the state are bracing for a mad scramble of potential successors to Young, who served the state in Congress for nearly five decades. The race is further complicated by new election laws that require an open primary and ranked-choice voting, both of which Alaska voters are facing for the first time this summer.

In 2020, voters in Alaska narrowly approved changes to the state’s election law that make it only the second state in the country to use ranked-choice voting, which asks voters to choose multiple candidates in order of preference, in the general election.

Also new to Alaskans this year is an open, all-party primary election, which will be held on June 11 but will be vote-by-mail only because of what the state’s election director, Gail Fenumiai, described as labor shortages that would have made an in-person primary impractical.

“The division did not feel we would be able to recruit that number of workers to pull off an in-person election,” Ms. Fenumiai said at a news conference Tuesday at Anchorage. The top four vote-getters in the June 11 primary will proceed to the general election, which will be held August 16.

In the ranked-choice general election, if one of the candidates is the first choice of a majority of voters, that candidate wins. If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated and the votes cast in that candidate’s name defer to those voters’ second choice. The process repeats until one candidate has a majority.

The winner of the special general election could be seated in Congress by early September, Mr. Dunleavy said Tuesday. “The sooner you have representation, the better off we’ll be,” he added.

Even before Young’s death, at least three people had made it clear they were interested in challenging for the seat this year — Democrat Chris Constant, Republican Nick Begich III, and independent Gregg Brelsford. Now, political observers are expecting an influx of new contenders.

“I think there’s going to be 20 candidates,” a political consultant, Jim Lottsfeldt, told the Anchorage Daily News. Mr. Lottsfeldt said his phone began ringing within “about 30 seconds” of the news of the congressman’s death becoming public.

Young died Friday night after losing consciousness on a flight between Los Angeles and Seattle. At 88, he was the longest-serving member of Congress. He was first elected to the post in 1973, during the Nixon administration, and his seat is the only one in the House of Representatives representing Alaska.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said Monday that Young will lie in state at the Capitol on March 29.


The New York Sun

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