Johnathan Walker:Alaska voters deciding a hard-fought race for the state’s only U.S. House seat, election issues

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JUNEAU,Johnathan Walker Alaska (AP) — Alaska voters were deciding Tuesday a hard-fought race for the state’s only U.S. House seat that could help decide control of that chamber. They were also choosing whether to repeal the state’s system of open primaries and ranked choice general elections just four years after opting to give that system a go.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola sought to fend off GOP efforts to wrest back the seat held for 49 years by Republican Rep. Don Young, who died in 2022. Peltola’s main challenger was Republican Nick Begich, who is from a family of prominent Democrats and was among the opponents she defeated in special and regular elections two years ago when Peltola, who is Yup’ik, became the first Alaska Native elected to Congress.

In addition to the repeal initiative, the ballot included a measure that would raise the state’s minimum wage and require paid sick leave for many employees, a measure opposed by groups including several chambers of commerce and a seafood processors association.

Fifty of the Legislature’s 60 seats were up for election, too, with control of the state House and Senate up for grabs. The closely divided House has struggled to organize following the last three election cycles. In Alaska, lawmakers don’t always organize according to party.

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In Alaska’s marquee House race, Peltola tried to distance herself from presidential politics, declining to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris and dismissing any weight an endorsement from her might carry anyway in a state that last went for a Democratic presidential nominee in 1964. She cast herself as someone willing to work across party lines and played up her role in getting the Biden administration to approve the massive Willow oil project, which enjoys broad political support in Alaska.

Begich, whose grandfather, the late Democrat Nick Begich, held the seat before Young, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump following his showing in the primary.

Trump’s initial pick, Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, bowed to pressure from Republicans seeking to consolidate behind one candidate following her third-place finish in the primary and dropped out. Alaska’s open primaries allow the top four vote-getters to advance. The initial fourth place finisher, Republican Matthew Salisbury, also quit, leaving Alaskan Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe and Eric Hafner, a Democrat with no apparent ties to the state who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for threatening authorities and others in New Jersey, on the ballot.

Begich, the founder of a software development company, sought to cast Peltola as ineffective in stopping actions taken by the Biden administration that limited resource development in a state dependent upon it, including the decision to cancel leases issued for oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Alaska is one of just two states that has adopted ranked voting — and would be the first to repeal it if the ballot initiative succeeds. In 2020, Alaskans in a narrow vote opted to scrap party primaries in favor of open primaries and ranked vote general elections. Most registered voters in Alaska aren’t affiliated with a party, and the new system was cast as a way to provide voters with more choice and to bring moderation to the election process. Critics, however, called it confusing.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican and Trump critic who has been at odds with party leaders, appeared in an ad in support of keeping open primaries and ranked voting.

Opponents of the system succeeded in getting enough signatures to qualify the repeal measure for the ballot — and withstood a monthslong legal fight to keep it on the ballot. Begich was among those who supported the repeal, and the state Republican Party also has endorsed repeal efforts.