In a stunning upset last week, Democrat Mary Peltola defeated former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin in a special election for Alaska's sole congressional district. The race garnered a lot of attention for its use of ranked choice voting. In 2020, Alaskans approved the new system, which allows voters to rank each candidate by preference. If no candidate wins an outright majority, then the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated and his or her voters' ballots are tallied again, with the second choices counted first instead. This repeats until a candidate passes 50 percent.
After the first ballot, Palin trailed Peltola 40–31, with Nick Begich III in third with 29 percent. After Begich was eliminated and his ballots were re-tallied, Peltola prevailed over Palin 51–49.
