AK-AL: Republican Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, who serves as Alaska’s top election official, announced Tuesday that the special primary to succeed the late Rep. Don Young as the state’s lone House member will take place on June 11. The contest, which will be conducted entirely by mail, will be the first election in American history to use the state’s new top-four primary rules. Under this system, the four candidates who take the most votes in June, regardless of party, will face off in an instant-runoff general election on Aug. 16. The filing deadline is April 1, so Young’s many would-be successors have just a short amount of time to decide whether to run.
To complicate matters, Aug. 16 is the same day as the regularly scheduled statewide primary election, which, until Young’s death, was to have been the first time that Alaska employed a top-four primary. (Unlike in the special primary, voters will be able to vote in-person that day.) Another instant-runoff race will take place in November, this time for a full two-year term in the next Congress. The filing deadline for the regular election is June 1, so anyone who wants to replace Young for longer than just a few months would need to file before they learn how they did in the first round of the special election.
This will be the very first congressional race in the state without an incumbent running since Young himself first was elected in a 1973 special election, and it could bring out some notable names. Two were already running: Businessman Nick Begich III, who is the rare Republican member of one of the Last Frontier’s most prominent Democratic families, and Democrat Chris Constant, a member of the Anchorage Assembly, had both entered the race against Young before his death on Friday, and they've since confirmed they’ll now campaign in both the special and regular contests.
The Anchorage Daily News also writes that, according to an unnamed source, Al Gross, an independent who was the 2020 Democratic nominee for the Senate, “said he intends to enter the race,” though all Gross himself would say publicly was that he would “be in touch.” Last cycle, Gross lost a very expensive campaign to Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan 54-41 as Trump was taking the state by a slightly smaller 53-43 spread. Last fall, he lost a low-profile bid to serve on the hospital board in his hometown of Petersburg.
During his Senate bid, Gross had planned to be listed on the ballot as both a Democrat and an independent, but the director of the Alaska Division of Elections made a last-minute decision that ensured he’d only be identified as a Democrat. That won’t be an issue under the new top-four rules, though, as candidates have the option to identify themselves with a party label or be listed as "undeclared" or "nonpartisan.” Gross would also begin with a financial head-start, as he still has $200,000 in leftover cash from his Senate war chest that he could use for a House campaign.
As for potential candidates on the Republican side, former Gov. Sarah Palin said Monday of Young, “If I were asked to serve in the House and take his place, I would be humbled and honored and I would in a heartbeat, I would.” Palin, though, has flirted with running for office in Alaska several times since her abrupt resignation in 2009 halfway through her one term as governor, but she has yet to ever go for it.
Most recently, last summer, she said of the prospect of taking on GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, “If God wants me to do it I will,” which was the first and last time we heard about that idea. Around the same time, the ADN sought to figure out what Palin had been up to lately but was rebuffed by the ex-governor and everyone in her circle. The paper described her as "nearly invisible within the state" and "almost entirely absent from Alaska politics" since her failed turn as John McCain's running mate.
Two Republicans who had been co-chairing Young’s re-election campaign, meanwhile, aren’t ruling out the idea. Former state Interior Department official Tara Sweeney, who would be the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, told the ADN, “Any discussions formally about who succeeds Don Young is premature at this point, and opportunistic.” State Sen. Josh Revak likewise said, “This is very new, and my focus is on his wishes and the wishes of his family, in terms of his legacy and in terms of honoring him. We’ll think about other stuff later.” The Anchorage Press also mentions state Sens. Mia Costello and Lora Reinbold, as well as state Rep. Sara Rasmussen, as possibilities, though it notes that “so far, none has uttered a peep publicly.”
Finally, Meda DeWitt, an Alaska Native traditional healer who was one of the leaders in the now-defunct effort to recall Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, said a House bid is “not off the table," adding, “It's a long time coming, having representation that is equitable.” She did not say what party banner she might run under, if any, though she supported Gross’ bid against Sullivan and has expressed her disgust with Trump.