Palin makes Alaska congressional ballot

Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska has advanced to the August special election for the state’s sole congressional seat.

The race was called by The Associated Press. Palin, with 28.3% of the vote as of Wednesday night, was leading the 48-candidate field, from which the top four candidates will advance.

Also advancing, according to the AP, are Nick Begich, the scion of an Alaskan political dynasty, with 19.3% of the vote; and Al Gross, a surgeon and commercial fisherman who ran for Senate two years ago, with 12.8%.

In fourth but not yet assured a place on the ballot was Mary Peltola, a former state legislator, with 8.7%.

The special election was prompted by the death in March of Rep. Don Young, a Republican who was first elected to the House in 1973. The election is to fill the remainder of his term.

Palin and Begich are Republicans, Gross is not affiliated with a party and Peltola is a Democrat. Also in August, a primary will set the field for the November general election to decide who will represent Alaska for a full two-year term starting in January. Palin, Begich and Gross are candidates in that race.

For Palin, the campaign is a political comeback. As Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential race, she lost to a Democratic ticket that included Joe Biden, and she resigned from the governor’s office, seeking to parlay her newfound profile into work as a political pundit. She had tapped into a similar anti-establishment, anti-news media vein of the Republican Party that later galvanized Donald Trump’s unexpected rise to the White House in 2016.