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The 2024 Alaska Blanket Primary, a Prelude to for November's General election that originally resulted in three major candidates advancing and—upon AK LG Dahlstrom dropping out—later changed to Incumbent Mary Peltola facing a united Republican opposition in Nick Begich III.
Vowing to run upon his 2022 loss, Begich ran this time with the suport of most of the local GOP establishment, minus a few players like Gov. Mike Dunleavy, with most national GOP players—such as frm. President Trump & Speaker Mike Johnson—suporting LG Nancy Dahlstrom as they saw her as a better chance to beat Peltola
Whilst Peltola lapped both candidates combined in fundraising, the internal GOP dynamics—Begich focusing more on Local and Dahlstrom more on National issues—made it so that Begich, with his higher name recognition from his 2022 run, was able to advance into second place, with Dahlstrom unifying behind him.
Despite this, combined, all republican Candidates were behind Mary Peltola (and one other Dem) in the composition of the primary overall, with Dems combining for nearly 4% more of the vote than Republicans.
Taking a look at turnout, we find that although Turnout is down across the board compared to the 2022 Primary (Held jointly with the special election), Democrats did not suffer the collapse in voteshare that they normally do in Alaska primaries—holding close to past margins.
Most of this appears to be holding their high propensity voters in the south Anchorage Juneau and Fairbanks suburbs, with competitive rural seats such as HD-36, 38, 39 & 40 (and non-competitive 37) seeing decent turnout of registered voters (Outside the North Slope)
Similarly, Republican Turnout in Northern Anchorage, and the Fairbanks suburbs held up well, providing the party with leads in SD-L—where Rs lead the combined vote of moderate Republican Senator Kelly Merick and Dems—& SD-P where the east of the district gave Rs to a slightly better than the 2022 Primary result.
Conversely, Democratic turnout doesn't seem to be as strong in Downtown Anchorage or Fairbanks proper, likewise Republican turnout in the stridently conservative lower Mat-Su valley doesn't seem to be as strong as it otherwise could be.
In the end, the primary results were some of the best possible ones for incumbent Mary Peltola, with her being in a strong position to win reelection in November.
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