Peltola, the first Alaska Native and the first Democrat in decades elected to fill the state’s lone House seat, beat two formidable Republican challengers Wednesday, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), to serve the remainder of the deceased representative. Term of Don Young (R). The victory came about a week after Democrat Pat Ryan prevailed over Republican Mark Molinaro in a New York special election in what was seen as a bellwether before the midterm elections. While Peltola was likely helped by the state’s new ranked-choice voting system, her victory also fuels further GOP concerns about how energized Democratic voters are, as well as the quality of Republican candidates running in key races. “The first thought was that the Republican Party has some work to do,” said Rick Whitbeck, who previously served as vice chairman of the Alaska Republican Party and now serves as the Alaska State director for Power the Future, when asked about the his reaction after the Victory of Peltola. Whitbeck said he believed Republicans’ underperformance in the special election was due in part to the ticket being split between Palin and fellow Republican candidate Nick Begich III who is running against Peltola. He said other reasons Peltola may have prevailed could be that voters saw it as a protest vote against the two Republican candidates or that voters may have been uneducated about the candidates. To be sure, Peltola’s win in Alaska comes with its own caveats that distinguish it from other recent races. For starters, this election cycle marks the first time the state has used ranked choice to elect its representatives — a system some Republicans have criticized. The Last Frontier is also known for its uniquely independent political brand, where ticket splitting is considered more common than in other states. But the race also revealed some of the challenges facing Republicans — including the divisions plaguing the party. A GOP strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed to Palin’s position in the state as an explanation for this week’s upset. “I think you have to consider the fact that Palin is just an extremely controversial brand in her own state, she has been for a long time,” the general said. “And she had a core base of people who were always going to support her, but, you know, even in her own party, there was a lot of disunity and disruption, and you saw her, you know, gravitating toward a Begić, for example.” Concerns about the quality of this cycle’s Republican nominees have become apparent in recent weeks, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) even citing it as a reason why the GOP was more likely to flip the House by the Senate this year. McConnell’s admission prompted an angry response from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the Senate campaign chairman, who called McConnell’s remarks “a shot at our candidates and voters.” Meanwhile, Democratic optimism has only grown over the summer amid a string of victories for the party. In Kansas, voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have given the state legislature more power to regulate abortion in the Sunflower State. They were further encouraged by special elections in Nebraska, Minnesota and New York earlier this year, where Democrats lost by narrower-than-expected margins. In another nod to Democratic momentum, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report this week shifted its ratings for five House seats to Democrats. “I think what’s happening in the Democratic Party right now, and particularly among House Democrats, is that the combination of winning New York last week and Alaska gave Democrats — it changed the Democrats’ perception of what’s possible in the election,” said Simon Rosenberg, who has served as a senior adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “And now we’re moving from a defensive posture to a much more aggressive posture,” he continued. “And I’ll tell you, I talked to the DCCC on the afternoon of the New York special last week, Tuesday afternoon, and they thought they were going to lose that race by three to four points, and we almost won by two and a half. “ Peltola, who spoke to The Hill in a phone interview Thursday, was more circumspect in her analysis of what her victory meant. “I don’t like to make too many predictions. I’m a pretty proactive person and I feel like making statements tends to confuse things. So I don’t want to speculate about national trends,” he said. “I won by a decent margin, but it certainly wasn’t a huge margin. I will be looking very carefully at where to focus more of my time in terms of reaching out to Alaskans and connecting with voters.” Many Republicans remain confident their party is still in good shape heading into late November. Matt Gorman, a former spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, said Peltola’s victory was “an aberration thanks to ranked-choice voting.” He also disputed the idea that Republicans performed less competitively than expected, citing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, which was one of several special elections held this year. He noted that the late Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.) won the House seat by wide margins in 2018 and 2020. And Democrats clearly still have their work cut out for them. While there are new signs of hope that the party could retain control of the Senate, recent polls show Republican candidates in states like Ohio and Georgia running closely alongside their Democratic counterparts. An Emerson College Polling poll released last month found that 45% of somewhat and very likely general election voters supported Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance (R), while 42% supported Democratic challenger Tim Ryan, poll that is just outside the margin of error at plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. A separate Emerson poll released earlier this week found 46 percent of likely general election voters in the state support Republican candidate Herschel Walker compared to incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) at 44 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. And while the Cook Report shifted some House seat estimates toward Democrats this week, the nonpartisan pollster still projects Republicans will pick up between 10 and 20 seats in November. Still, the primary season has been rough at times for the GOP, which has left candidates bruised after some particularly brutal primaries. “I’ve been saying this for 30 years of being in politics: Republicans don’t always play nice,” said Whitbeck, a former Alaska GOP vice chairman, when discussing the reckoning of some GOP-Republican races. they have taken over the party. “Sometimes I wish the Republicans would figure out how to limit the damage, you know, the circular executive detachment mentality,” he added. Violent threats against lawmakers led to Congress on January 6. Committee rejects subpoena for RNC fundraising data: reports But with the primary season largely over and many campaigns shifting into a general election mindset, some say it’s too early to speculate on how both parties will fare in the midterms — after all, still more than two months to go. “The winning teams are usually the ones that are able to overcome those bumpy rough stretches and regain their footing heading into the fourth quarter,” said the GOP strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity, likening the midterms to races NFL. “And as for this year, it’s going to be, you know, after Labor Day it’s the fourth quarter of the campaign, and so even with the Republicans having a little bit of a rough stretch, I actually think the Democrats may have peaked, you know, during halftime, but in the third quarter, which is too early.”
