Third-generation Alaskan Nick Begich, on his second run for Congress, is the favorite to win the 2024 race to unseat Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola, who won in 2022 after Sarah Palin jumped into the race and the last minute and split the Republicans.
As of Election Night, with all Nov. 5 and all the early votes cast through Oct. 31, Begich, a Republican, is ahead. He has 124,632 votes, for 49.66%. Peltola has 113,612 votes for 45.27%.
Third-party John Wayne Howe has 9,710 votes or 3.87% and Democrat Eric Hafner has 2,446, not quite 1% of the vote.
Only 155 absentee ballots came in from the heavy Peltola districts in rural Alaska, which indicates there will not be a lot more votes for her from that region, where turnout was low. More absentees and other votes received will be counted on Friday or next week.
Begich is on course to win Congress. There are not enough votes to get Peltola over the 50%+1 vote threshold.
It’s going to be hard for Peltola to catch Begich. With the outstanding ballots to be counted, she has to do 4.4% better than she has done with those ballots already counted. Begich only needs .2% to get to 50% of the remaining absentees, questioned, and early votes that came in over the weekend and Monday.
Then there is the ranking. Right now, there are about 10,000 votes from Howe and Hafner to be ranked. Peltola needs all of those, which is nearly mathematically impossible.
The caveat is Alaska has to wait to learn how many questioned, absentee and early votes have not been counted yet.
In Peltola’s favor is that the unreported precincts are all rural, and there are 28 precincts unreported.
However, these are tiny precincts, like Shishmaref, where Peltola got 78% of the vote — and prevailed there by a margin of 111 votes.
Not all the precincts that haven’t reported are that pro-Peltola. Shishmaref is one of her strongest. She might gain about 50 votes per precinct; that would be about 1,000 votes.
But with ranked-choice voting still in effect, Alaska may have to wait until Nov. 20 to have Begich declared the “official” winner. The delay in being able to call him the winner impacts Alaska’s role in Congress, as members are ranked in seniority depending on how long they have been in Congress. As happened for Peltola in 2022, ranked-choice voting put Alaska in nearly last place in seniority, another unwelcome gift by the ranked-choice voting scheme designed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her supporters.
Thank you all for making Alaska great again….we now have a chance to see Alaska take a new roll in changing American and revitalizing the possibilities in the great land.
I would rather see Alaska take a new role, than a new roll. No wonder this country is in such a sorry state.
You, sir, are using a fraudulent name. First you’re not spelling Begich correctly and Nick Begich Sr. is long since deceased.
Thank you Gretchen. I noticed the misspelling on one of this person’s prior posts and did not say anything. I wonder what is going on? I hope that Suzanne has noticed this.
No he isn’t I was standing at a mining conference talking to him 4 hours ago.
I too, see dead people Doug.
Gretchen, be careful. I also criticized this gentleman the last time he posted here. I contended he would properly be Nick Begich Jr, or Nick Begich II because his father, lost in the fateful plane trip, would rightfully be the one called Nick Begich Sr…. otherwise he must be a fake. However, Nick Begich III, our candidate, assured me the above person is indeed his father. I also found it is proper for him to use the title, Nick Begich Sr, in this context. I hereby publicly apologize to him for earlier questioning of his identity.
Amen! I am praying Nick Jr holds the lead and it gets stronger so that he will be our new congressman!
Nick Jr. is Nick Begich III’s father. An easy way to remember it is “NB3.”
Let’s hope that we can express our heartfelt thanks to Lisa and her dark money friends for RCV by voting her out next time she is up for re-election…
Isn’t better to bank on repealing RCV in the meantime? Going check on that ballot measure now….
What ever did Alaska do to deserve Murkowski? Having voted to impeach President Trump, she will have difficulty getting items favorable for Alaska passed in DC.. Dump her.
The reason she persists like the Ever-Ready Bunny is because so many Alaskans have grown dependent on the free stuff she directs their way.
Who are the 2446 brain dead that voted for a noncitizen who is in prison?
GMAFB
We knew who Eric Hafner is, and where he is (federal prison). Casting votes for him was a calculated strategy. For example, voting for him in second or third place (behind Nick Begich) was a small way of gaming the ranked choice system, and keeping votes from being gifted to Peltola.
In addition, (as I perceive things), every first place rank for Hafner was one less vote for Peltola, also.
That said, I certainly hope that we succeed in doing away with ranked choice voting entirely. Lastly, I give belated thanks to Nancy Halstrom for giving up and dropping out of the race early.
Politicians are often such self-serving narcissists, that they can’t see what is obvious to the rest of us. She would have just split the Republican vote without a realistic chance for victory, and handed the race to Peltola.
I did and then JW Howe & then Begich.
The jail guy and Howe vote are tossed out.
The Begich vote will stick, that’s how RCV Bingo works.
It seems more productive to have Nick reach 50%+1 on the first round and all that ranking nonsense goes away. But at least it denies Mary Peltola a vote to pad her tally!
Be interesting to view how “Missie” Murkowski will be addressed with any tolerance within Trump supporting Senate Republicans. Will she take the opportunity to “Leave”the Republican Party,as many celebrities have indicating leaving the country with a Trump win?
Just can not get my arms around her being welcome as a continued RINO without political consequences.
Having a House member in Begich will be a God sent political insurance policy to our Alaska needs where warranted.
“…..Be interesting to view how “Missie” Murkowski will be addressed with any tolerance within Trump supporting Senate Republicans…….”
Indeed. She’s soiled her party bedding in DC beyond cleansing over the past eight years. And if ranked choice voting is repealed in Alaska, I suspect the state party will have their long knives all sharpened up for her next re-election campaign in 2026. Switching parties can’t help her here in Alaska, and now it can’t help her in DC. I’m thinking (hoping) that she’s soon to be a historical lesson for folks in the future to learn from.
Dasvidaniya, Lisa. I can’t say that it has been a pleasure.
She has been threatening, promising? to consider changing party affiliation. This is probably her opportunity to stab us in the back ONE MORE TIME. Then off to be a happy indedemocrat with a clear conscience.
Shouldn’t take this long Are they looking for ways to cheat? Probably!
So if she gets the other two’s ranked votes, she wins correct?
The “if” part of that statement is the big “if.” – sd
If that were the case, wouldn’t Palin have gotten Begich’s in the prior election?
No. There were more Palin haters than conservatives. The Begich voters voted Peltola as their second choice. That was an illustration of what we can all expect out of Democrats/liberals/leftists today. There will be no reconciliation among them in the coming four years. Only hatred, seething, and resistance.
No, it always depends on the voters choices. Many did not rank either Sarah or Nick second in 2022.
Greg wants you to believe that all Howe and felon voters vote en bloc. That is an assumption that can not be supported, as it is not an automatic distribution, but depends again on the individual voters choices. It is statistically illogical to assume that everyone of these voters picked Mary second.
If she gets all 12k, it would put her over Begich’s 11k lead. But the odds that the Howe voters (AIP) listed Peltola as their second choice are, I think, slim. I could be wrong, but I think AIP people are going to fall back to the Republican or not rank a second at all. It seems like a very narrow path for Peltola, though still technically possible.
No matter how many votes she gets she will always be Alaska’s “loser”.
Now he has the task of actually delivering on his promises
She would’ve missed this rank choice voting causes. We have to wait till November 20 to see who won so behind-the-scenes they can take our votes and use them the way they want them. Like I keep saying one volt one person the system should not be in control of your vote the vote is not in your hands when they can give it to somebody else. Isn’t there a law against this having more than one vote?
I voted one candidate for each office.
You just voted on repealing RCV. If it doesn’t pass, grassroots proponents of it should consider contacting the “Int’l League of Signature Gatherers” on Facebook to keep putting it on til it passes. Of course, the signature gatherers have to be paid, but are there enough individual Murkowski adversaries and dedicated Conservatives in Alaska to contribute to a committee or whatever to enable this?
Here’s another example of “every vote counts!” I hope all of you daily readers got out and voted!
Sad part is that this whole RCV debacle would have been mute with just 0.37% more Begich votes.
It would have been amazing to not have any ranking in this race. Hope and pray that absentee military push NB3 over the 50% threshold.
At least Ranked Choice lost everywhere else in the Lower 48. The Leftists who pushed it here, and the useful idiots who believed their well-moneyed lies, will hopefully learn their lesson.
Count the ballots you have on-hand now. Today. I don’t care if you don’t have all of them. Since when is it right to only count ballots when you have all of them. We don’t have that requirement in ANY other state. Count what you have (legally cast, of course), and report the results. WHY? Because then the races will likely be outside of the margin of error, and we can MOVE ON! Count the ballots, please.
Thank you all for voting! I had the honor of working on Election Day and it was so rewarding to see so many people coming out to vote. The first 2 hours we had no electricity and people voted as they held their phones in one hand and voted in the other! What a process!!!! God Bless America!🇺🇸
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