Last week, Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Republican Sarah Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich III, in a ranked-choice special election for Alaska’s vacant U.S. House seat, creating a ripple of hope for both native women and Democrats in November. The reason for the special election was a vacancy caused by the death of Republican Congressman Don Young, and the results were quite an upset for the former governor and John McCain’s VP running mate who is seeking a seat in Washington. 

Peltola, an enrolled member of the Yup’ik group, is a former state legislator with ten years of experience in politics and will become Alaska’s first indigenous member of the U.S. Congress.

Peltola’s win comes on the heels of unexpected wins for Democrats in special congressional elections since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June. 

Although Alaska is a GOP stronghold, Palin’s big personality, conservative history, and reliance on a far-right MAGA campaign didn’t pull it off for her this time. Peltola ran as an advocate for protecting the environment, aborting rights, and focused on local issues that are important to her constituents. She defeated Palin by 3 percentage points (51.5% to 48.5%), and the campaign outspent Palin 4 to 1. 

This is an interesting turn of events in a state that carried Trump in 2020, but what is more interesting is that the special election was Alaska’s first open primary under the election system voters approved in 2020. In this special election, the number of ballots was the third-highest total for a primary in state history. According to Alaskans for Better Elections, there are over 300,000 voters in Alaska that do not identify with any particular party. That’s more than half the state. Also, under the ranked-choice primary model, all eligible voters get the same ballot that includes all candidates, regardless of party. Then the top four vote-getters advance to the general election in November.

As of 2020, many states have open primaries in which you can vote for any candidate of your choice, regardless of party. 21 states have fully or partially closed primaries, which means that voters must be registered with a party in order to vote. Twelve states, like Alaska, have fully open primaries in which voters can cast ballots for candidates of any party, but in some cases, voters are only allowed to vote in one party’s primary. New Mexico and several other states have closed primaries in which only registered party members can vote and only vote for their party’s candidates.

In the case of Alaska, the open primary gave voters more choices. Although Palin and other GOP legislators called the ranked system “weird” and an “election scam,” proponents of the new system say that in giving voters more of a choice, the process is more democratic. They also state that when voters have more choices, they are less likely to vote along strict party lines, in turn reducing polarization and giving independent voters a voice. 

Alaska may be paving the way for the rest of the nation. Although there are many pros and cons to open primaries, combining ranked-choice, open primary voting across party lines with an instant runoff between several candidates can reduce the influence of dominant political parties, in turn encouraging a more democratic process.