Sarah Palin’s Polling At 31%, Question Is, Can She Beat Santa Claus?

She’s baaaack. Yes indeed, Sarah Palin has joined the ranks of Oral Roberts, Richard Nixon and Count Dracula, personages who you think are dead and gone, but nonetheless they resurrect and return to torment. But don’t look for her to just cakewalk into the House seat vacated by the late Don Young. Her numbers are not that great, and then there’s the guy in the red suit who sits on the North Pole council. Yes, we speak of Santa Claus. I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. This is the state of Republican politics in 2022, and the two will undoubtedly debate, if not in reality then definitely on Saturday Night Live. Politico:

Here in Alaska, she also personifies the tension between local and national politics, and her candidacy could be a referendum on which matters more. She is deeply unpopular in her home state. The longtime pollster Ivan Moore of Alaska Survey Research last registered her favorability rating, in October, at 31 percent. And yet, she still could win. In a poll commissioned by the conservative website Must Read Alaska, Palin led all other candidates, with 31 percent support. Al Gross, who is running as an independent after his failed Senate race in the state in 2020, was second, with 26 percent, followed by Begich, scion of an Alaska political dynasty, at 21 percent.

And there are 45 more candidates in addition to those. At Pike’s, where a “Captain Don Young” informational sign is posted on the door of Room 329, Young’s preferred room, Ramras shook his head.

“Our state is goofy as shit,” he said.

In one sense, this is a perfect stage for a Sarah Palin comeback. Going from “The Masked Singer” and taping personalized videos on Cameo for $199 a pop to trying this particularly circuslike House race would appear to make all the sense in the world. Begich, a mainstream Republican who has been vacuuming up endorsements from Republicans in the state, comes from one of the most storied Democratic families in Alaska. He’s the grandson of the late Rep. Nick Begich Sr. and nephew of former Sen. Mark Begich. There’s the all-party primary and ranked-choice voting that will be employed in the election, which further scrambles anyone’s certainty. And then there’s Santa Claus.

“I do have name recognition,” Claus, a monk who is a democratic socialist and sits on the North Pole city council, told me.

Jim Minnery, executive director of the Alaska Family Council, called the race “a zoo, with Santa Claus thrown in.” David Pruhs, who has a radio show in Fairbanks and is running for that city’s mayor, predicted it will be a “spectacle.”

Palin hasn’t been on a ballot in Alaska since 2008. Considering how much water has gone under the political bridge and what a different country we are today, either post-Trump, or still in the Trump era, take your pick, Palin’s situation is nowhere near the same as what it was then. She’s in a ranked-choice vote and has to get over 50%.

She did get the coveted Trump endorsement and Trump did carry Alaska with 20 points in 2020. So maybe she will be Don Young’s successor. Whatever the case may be, it will be a colorful match. On that you may depend.

Support the site with a subscription today and see no more ads!

Go Ad-free Now!