Primary Election 2022 live blog

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Election Day has arrived for residents across the state of Alaska, and polls are open for voters to cast their choice of candidates in several key races. This live blog is where Alaska’s News Source team will be posting breaking updates, election results and more throughout the week.

Aug. 16 – 12 p.m.

Candidates get out for last-minute campaigning

Up for grabs Tuesday are three key races — the special ranked-choice election that will determine who will finish serving the term of the late Rep. Don Young, who died suddenly in March while traveling home to Alaska, the primary “pick-one” election for one of Alaska’s two U.S. Senate seats, and the gubernatorial primary.

Voting locations are open today from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Tuesday morning, candidates and their supporters were seen holding signs out on busy street corners in Anchorage, hoping to garner some last-minute support.

Tuesday is the first time that Alaskans will be using ranked-choice voting, a system that residents voted to use in 2020. The ranked-choice system will only be used for the special general election contested between the three U.S. House candidates — Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III, and Democrat Mary Peltola — as well as six other certified write-in candidates.

Here’s how the ranked-choice voting works — to win outright, a candidate needs at least a 50% majority of the votes. If there’s no majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their second-choice votes tabulated.

The primary election for U.S. Senate is a pick-one election — meaning voters will choose just one name on their ballot — being contested between multiple candidates, with the two leading contenders being Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski and Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka, the latter of which who has been publicly endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Republican Tara Sweeney announced this week that she plans to run as a write-in candidate, two months after missing out on the special primary election that dropped all but the top four candidates from the ballot.

The governor’s race is headlined by Republican incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who is facing 10 other challengers on the official ballot.

This is a developing news story. Check back for updates.

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