by Greg Lincoln
Toksook Bay’s Nellie Jimmie will represent House District 38. Nick Begich wins US House Seat.
Ranked choice voting tabulations have been made by the Alaska Division of Elections which were featured during a live feed online on November 20th, 2024 courtesy of KTOO’s Gavel Alaska. Division of Elections Program Manager Brian Jackson hosted the 2024 Ranked Choice Vote Count in Juneau. Present with him were members of the press, the State Review Board, and state election officials and staff.
“To be clear, this is going to be an unofficial ranked tabulation,” said Jackson. “There will be another tabulation performed after the certification process, which will become the official certification.”
The State Review Board began the audit and certification process on Thursday, November 21. Results are unofficial until certification is complete (approximately November 30).
Alaskans voted in the General Election before and on November 5th, 2024. Nine races continued on to round 2 including for us here in House District 38: US House, HD06, HD28, HD36, HD38, HD40, SD D, SD F, and SD L.
For the race for US House, Nick Begich led 159,071 (48.59%). Incumbent Mary Peltola had the second highest votes 151,758 (46.35%). In third was John Wayne Howe with 13,052 (3.99%). In fourth was Eric Hafner who despite being out of state received 3,504 votes (1.07%) from his jail cell in New York. He is serving a 20 year federal sentence for threatening officials in New Jersey.
Hafner was eliminated as a candidate. 1303 of the votes were transferred to Rep. Peltola. 654 were transferred to Howe, and 263 went to Begich. For round 2, Howe was eliminated and 4,783 votes were transferred to Begich. 2702 were transferred to Rep. Peltola.
Round 3 was final with Begich with 164,117 votes (51.31%). Rep. Peltola had 155,763 (48.69%). With Begich receiving over 50% plus 1 of the votes, he was declared the winner and the representative-elect for Alaska’s lone congressional seat.
In the House District 38 race, the results were very close. Nellie Jimmie was the highest vote-getter in round 1 with 1,174 (35.20%). The second highest votes went to incumbent Representative CJ McCormick 1,120 (33.58%). Willy Keppel had 868 votes (26.03%) and Victoria Sosa had 173 votes (5.19%).
In round 2, Sosa was eliminated. 55 votes went to Jimmie, 34 went to Rep. McCormick, and 27 went to Keppel. For round 3, Keppel was eliminated and second choice votes were transferred, 209 went to McCormick and 192 went to Jimmie.
Nellie Jimmie maintained her lead throughout the ranked choice voting tabulations. She received a total of 1,421 (51.04%) and was declared the winner. Rep. McCormick received 1,363 votes. A total of 58 votes separated the two candidates.
