According to a report from the Daily Beast, conservative activists in Alaska are growing increasingly furious with former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin who already lost the Republican Party their seat in the U.S. House for the rest of the year and now threatens to make it impossible to win the seat back in the November midterms.
Palin's unpopularity led to the election of Democrat Mary Peltola weeks ago because a substantial number of Republicans refused to make her their second pick, after voting for fellow Republican Nick Begich as their first choice, in Alaska's ranked-choice voting.
With Peltola headed to Washington, D.C., Republicans are regrouping back in Alaska and making plans for the midterms and Palin is not making their job any easier.
At issue, is Palin's "feud" with Begich -- who is and was the popular choice -- and her refusal to bow out, thereby clearing a path for Republicans to regain the seat.
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According to the Beast's Sam Brodey, "Sobered by the sight of a Democrat in the state’s lone U.S. House seat for the first time in six decades, Republicans looked to either Palin or Begich to drop out in order to give the GOP their best shot at winning the November general election. Ahead of the filing deadline on Monday, both Begich and Palin said the other should be the one to drop out. But when the deadline passed, neither of them had, and each is equally convinced they are the Republican with the real path to victory."
Noting the stand-off "could end up costing the party this seat for the next two years or longer," one Republican operative in Alaska predicted, "As Palin and Begich beat the f*ck out of each other, [Peltola] is going to coast. Until Palin and Begich figure this out, it’s going to be problematic.”
According to Brodey, "During the special election campaign, Palin and Begich seemed more interested in attacking each other than making the case against a Democrat. Begich’s strategy was to brutally attack Palin—calling her at one point 'uninformed' and 'intellectually deleterious'—in hopes of owning the GOP vote share," adding, "Put off by the attacks, Palin was far harsher on Begich than she was on Peltola. The two women coincidentally have a years-long friendship, dating back to when Peltola was a pregnant member of the state legislature just as Palin was expecting her final child while governor."
That has conservative pollster Ivan Moore labeling the dispute, "ongoing, ludicrous, counter-productive, self-destructive," before adding it is "predominantly being driven by Sarah Palin.”
As for the Democrats, they couldn't be more thrilled by the fact that Palin won't step aside.
“The Republicans are kind of screwed,” explained Alaska state legislator Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. "Speaking as a Democrat, I’d say it's a gift that Sarah Palin is in this congressional race, because she’s not acting rationally, she's extremely unpopular, and it sets the stage for Mary to win in November.”
You can read more here.
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