Signs posted on Aug. 18, 2024, at the Alaska Division of Elections office in Midtown Anchorage direct voter traffic. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Polls open at 7 a.m. on Tuesday for Alaska’s primary election, the preliminary round for 50 legislative races and one of the most competitive U.S. House elections in the country.
Pre-election turnout has been unusually low : This is the first Alaska primary in more than a decade without a governor’s race, race for U.S. Senate, or a ballot measure.
At the top of the ballot, Democratic U.S. House incumbent Mary Peltola has no serious competition from other Democrats, but Republicans have two main options — Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and 2022 contender Nick Begich — as well as a swath of lesser-known candidates to pick from.
Two legislative races are guaranteed to narrow the field. In Eagle River, voters have five possible state Senate candidates to pick from, and in the rural Interior, only four of six candidates for House District 36 will advance to the November general election.
In their own words
Ahead of the primary election, the Alaska Beacon asked every legislative and U.S. House candidate 15 questions that were chosen by our reporters and you, our readers. You can read their responses here .
Forty-eight other state legislative races are also on the ballot across the state, but in each of those races, there are four or fewer candidates, meaning no one will be eliminated by the primary.
Under Alaska’s elections system, the top four vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
Political consultant John-Henry Heckendorn said that’s a feature, not a bug — allowing more candidates to reach the general election means more competition in the election that best represents Alaskans overall.
Heckendorn’s Ship Creek Group has been hired by a campaign seeking to keep Alaska’s election system in place. In November, voters will be asked whether they want to keep or repeal the system.
Republicans have been campaigning against the top-four primary, and in several legislative races, some Republican candidates have signed pledges saying that they will withdraw from the November general election if they finish behind another Republican.
That could make the results of Tuesday’s primary significant in races even when no one is automatically eliminated.
But a primary victory isn’t a guarantee of future success. Two years ago, Democratic state House candidate Maxine Dibert of Fairbanks finished behind Republican incumbent Bart LeBon. A few months later, Dibert defeated LeBon in the general election.
In Wasilla that same year, incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Shower finished behind Republican challenger Doug Massie in the primary election, then defeated Massie by almost 5 percentage points in November.
Political consultant Matt Shuckerow said primary results can tell candidates they’re doing well, or they can reveal a significant — but potentially correctable — problem.
“I think that’s what some of tomorrow is going to be like,” he said on Monday. “For many people, it’s business as usual, ‘We got what we thought we would get.’ But for some people, it’s going to be like, ‘Oh, there’s a hole in the bottom of the boat and you’re taking on water. You need to fix something.’”
Polls close at 8 p.m. statewide, and the first results are expected later that evening.
Absentee ballots postmarked on or before election day must arrive within 10 days in order to be counted, and final unofficial results are expected on Aug. 30.
To find your polling place and check your registration status, visit https://myvoterportal.alaska.gov/.
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