Kerry Tasker | Reuters Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the only Republican woman ever nominated for vice president, was defeated in her political comeback bid to represent the state in the U.S. House of Representatives, NBC News reported Wednesday night. Palin’s loss to Democrat Mary Peltola was her second loss in an election for the Alaska general seat in the House in less than three months. The race took weeks to call because the winner was determined by Alaska’s new ranked choice voting system. In late August, Peltola beat Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich, in a special election for the seat. It was left vacant by the death in March of GOP Rep. Don Young, who had served for nearly half a century. Peltola, a former state representative, became the first Alaska Native in Congress. But she immediately faced a rematch against Palin and Begich in the election to a full two-year term. Peltola finished fourth in a nonpartisan primary in June.
CNBC Politics
Read more about CNBC’s political coverage: In mid-August, none of the remaining three candidates in the special election received more than 50% of the vote. The winner was then determined by a ranked-choice voting system approved by state voters two years earlier. Palin railed about the ranking system after her first loss, calling its adoption a “mistake.” But Begich said “ranked voting showed that a vote for Sarah Palin is actually a vote for Mary Peltola.” “Palin simply does not have enough support from the people of Alaska to win the election,” Begich said at the time. The late Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona chose Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential race against Democratic nominee and eventual winner Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden, himself elected president two years earlier. Palin resigned as governor of Alaska in July 2009, less than a year after losing the presidential election, saying ethics allegations against her threatened to swamp the state.
