It’ll be awhile yet before we know who won Alaska’s House special election — additional results are scheduled to be released on Aug. 23, Aug. 26 — and then on Aug. 31, when the ranked-choice tabulations should take place as all the mail ballots will be in.
But with only a few points separating former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Republican businessman Nick Begich III for second place, it’ll be important to watch how the vote tallies change. For instance, if Palin ends up finishing third, she’ll be eliminated and most of her support would likely go to Begich, leading to his election. But if Begich finishes third, his support might be split between Palin and Democratic former state Rep. Mary Peltola, who is currently in the lead, possibly helping Peltola win. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Elsewhere, in Alaska, things went largely as expected. In the regularly scheduled House primary, Palin, Begich, Peltola and former Assistant Secretary of the Interior Tara Sweeney all advanced and in the Senate primary, both Sen. Lisa Murkowski and former Alaska Department of Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka advanced. (Democrat Patricia Chesbro has just 6 percent of the vote, but is also projected to advance. The fourth candidate is yet to be determined, but will also have a small share of the vote.) And in the governor’s race, we don’t have any projections, but incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in pretty good shape, though as Nathaniel noted on the live blog, it’s possible Democratic former state Rep. Les Gara could eat into his margin signaling trouble for him in the general.
The big news from the evening remains Rep. Liz Cheney’s defeat. More of the vote is now in, and the margin by which Cheney lost is staggering — 37 points:
Latest count in Wyoming’s at-large district GOP primary
Results of the Republican primary for Wyoming’s at-large congressional district, as of 2:00 a.m. Eastern
| Candidate | Votes | Vote % |
|---|---|---|
| Harriet Hageman | 113,025 | 66.3% |
| Liz Cheney* | 49,316 | 28.9 |
| Anthony Bouchard | 4,505 | 2.6 |
| Denton Knapp | 2,258 | 1.3 |
| Robyn M. Belinskey | 1,305 | 0.8 |
But as we discussed on the live blog, this wasn’t a surprise. Cheney built a reputation for herself as one of Trump’s harshest critics, and it didn’t endear her to voters at home. Politico Playbook had some exclusive reporting out this morning with Cheney’s next moves, and it looks as if she won’t be giving up her mantle as Trump’s top critic anytime soon (TBD on her 2024 aspirations, though). To read more about how other House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump fared this primary cycle, check out Geoffrey’s deep dive on what happened to the 9 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.
Finally, the more competitive race in Wyoming last night was its GOP primary for secretary of state, and in that race, state Rep. Chuck Gray defeated state Sen. Tara Nethercott by 8 points. Notably, Gray has called the 2020 election “illegitimate” and is the sixth election denier Republicans have nominated for secretary of state around the country. (The others are in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and New Mexico.)
