Commercial property sees record appeals<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\nJust last week, Sweeney issued a statement saying her goal was to finish in the top four and that it appeared she would “fall just short.” She said she had planned to meet with advisers and supporters to determine “next steps.”<\/p>\n
However, on Tuesday the Division of Elections released a letter saying that because Gross was announcing his withdrawal is occurring fewer than 64 days before the special election, his name would be removed from the ballot but the next place candidate will not move up to take his spot. That means there will only be three names on the special election ballot despite Alaska’s election rules stating the top four vote-getters will move on from the primary.<\/p>\n
“The special general election is 56 days away. Because there are fewer than 64 days before the election, the statute does not allow the Division of Elections to place the fifth-place candidate on the ballot,” DOE director Gail Fenumiai wrote in response to an inquiry from the Begich campaign and shared with the media.<\/p>\n
But that’s only for the race to immediately replace Republican Rep. Don Young who died in March, triggering the special election. Alaskans have yet to cast their votes in the regular primary which will select the top four candidates to contend for a full two-year term in the U.S. House. That vote will take place Aug. 16, the same day as the special election. Gross has withdrawn from the<\/p>\n
Fewer candidates have filed to run for that race than the 48 who ran in the special primary, but all of the top five vote-getters in the special primary had previously filed for the regular election. As of Tuesday afternoon, 28 candidates were still registered to run in the regular election for Alaska’s U.S. House seat, though some candidates such as Anchorage Assembly member Christopher Constant have said they intend to drop out of the race. Constant, a Democrat, stated in a letter he would be supporting Peltola’s campaign.<\/p>\n
The deadline to withdraw as a candidate for the regular primary is Saturday. The deadline to withdraw as a candidate for the special election is noon on Sunday.<\/p>\n
In an email Tuesday, campaign spokesperson Malia Barto said Sweeney was in a part of Alaska inaccessible by phone or email but that her campaign would make an announcement when she returns.<\/p>\n
Palin said in a statement Tuesday she hopes Gross’ voters will consider her as their candidate.<\/p>\n
“Now that Al Gross supporters lost their candidate, I hope they will take a look at where I stand on the issues, and how I will never stop fighting for the greatest state in the Union,” Palin said. “I welcome the new addition to the top four, and am excited to continue campaigning on resource development, lower fuel costs, affordable groceries, ensuring individual rights…all to create a brighter future for all Alaskans.”<\/p>\n
Most of those running in the special primary reported no fundraising to the Federal Election Commission. But Gross reported receiving about $545,000 between March 23 and May 22, about $86,000 less than Palin over roughly the same period.<\/p>\n
Gross, an orthopedic surgeon, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2020 with the endorsement of state Democrats.<\/p>\n
But in the House special primary, Alaska Democratic party leaders urged voters to pick from among the six Democrats running.<\/p>\n
The party, in a social media post, had referred to Gross as “pandering” after Gross in a newspaper interview did not commit to caucusing with Democrats if elected. Gross later said he would.<\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Peter Segall at psegall@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SegallJnuEmpire. Becky Boher of the Associated Press contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Special election will feature only three candidates <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":87320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[809,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-87319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-election-2022","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87319"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=87319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}