Eight Republicans, one Democrat, and 13 other candidates are in the field for the open primary to replace Don Young, an ex-Representative from Alaska who died in March. There will be 22 names on Tuesday’s ballot. Four of them will move on to November.
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican nominee for vice-president, is the most well-known name. She has been endorsed previously by President Donald J. Trump. But there are two other strong candidates in the race: Nick Begich III, a former co-chairman of the Alaska Republican Party’s Finance Committee, and Mary Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker.
These three are also eligible to vote in a special election on Tuesday. This will determine who fills in the seat until the current term expires in January. The contest is held under a ranking-choice system. It may take a few weeks to find out who won because of the extensive tabulations required for ranked-choice.
Here are a few of the front-runners that are not as well-known nationally.
Nick Begich III
44-year-old Mr. Begich is the founder of and chief executive at a software development firm. He was a co-chairman of Mr. Young’s 2020 campaign, helped lead the “OneAlaska” campaign against a 2020 ballot initiative that would have increased taxes on some oil production, and has worked with conservative groups including the Club for Growth and the Alaska Policy Forum.
In April, the Alaska Republican Party endorsed his candidacy.
Mr. Begich is against gun control laws, opposes vaccine mandates, pandemic mitigation strategies, and supports oil-and-gas production. On abortion, he said in a June debate that he agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade but that it should be up to states to ban or allow the procedure, suggesting he might not support a national ban.
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He has not endorsed Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but has not directly rejected them. In interviews, he has answered questions on the topic vaguely, mentioning many Republicans’ false belief that the election was stolen without saying it is unfounded.
“Unfortunately, Joe Biden is the president,” he said in response to a questionnaire from The Anchorage Daily News. “It’s clear that we have a crisis of confidence in our election systems, and restoring that confidence requires improved public transparency.”
If Mr. Begich’s surname sounds familiar, it may be because he is a nephew of former Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat who served from 2009 to 2015. Nick Begich Sr., the current candidate’s grandfather, was a Democratic member of the House from 1971 until his disappearance in a plane crash the following year. Tom Begich, the candidate’s uncle, is a Democratic member of the Alaska Senate.
Mary Peltola
Ms. Peltola — the only Democrat in the 22-candidate primary — served in the Alaska House from 2009 to 2019 before becoming the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which works with tribes to manage salmon resources. She has served as a Bethel city councilwoman and on the Orutsararmuit Native Council Tribal Court Judge.
Ms. Peltola, 48, has put economic issues at the forefront of her campaign, calling for a renewal of the expanded child tax credit, universal prekindergarten as proposed in Democrats’ Build Back Better legislation, stronger labor protections and a public health care option. She supports abortion rights and wants them to be codified in federal law.
On environmental issues, she has made a point to emphasize local input and control: “Decisions about where and how to harvest, drill or mine must reflect the priorities of people living closest to any proposed project,” her website says. In response to an Anchorage Daily News questionnaire, she said she would push for more oil supply to come from Alaska for now, but added, “For every dollar we invest in short-term nonrenewable fossil fuel development, we need to invest 10 times that amount in long-term renewable energy resources.”
Ms. Peltola, a Yup’ik Eskimo, would be the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress. Only five Indigenous people — two Cherokee, one Chickasaw, one Ho-Chunk and one Native Hawaiian — are currently serving in Congress from any state.
“It is long past time that an Indigenous person was sent to D.C. to work on behalf of Alaska,” she told The New York Times this spring.
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