Primary races across the country have offered an early read on where voters want their parties to head before November’s consequential midterms in the United States. With only a handful of US states remaining in the congressional primary calendar, voters in Alaska and Wyoming — two reliably Republican strongholds — head to the polls on Tuesday, with races that could send ripples well beyond their small electorates. Although the state has long been safe Republican territory in federal elections, this year marks the third consecutive election cycle in which Alaska finds itself among a handful of states at the centre of the fight for control of Congress.
Wyoming offers a different kind of race: a rare wholesale turnover of Republican leadership. Wyomingites have a glut of new leaders to choose from at the statehouse, in the governor’s mansion and in the US Capitol. Contests that could further consolidate the state’s ultraconservative politics or begin to push them to the centre.
Polls open at 7am ( ) and close at 8pm local time (04:00 on Wednesday GMT), although Alaska’s two time zones stagger poll closings across the state. Unlike most states, Alaska uses a single primary rather than separate Republican and Democratic contests. This comes after Alaska voters approved Ballot Measure 2 back in 2020, which effectively eliminated the state’s traditional party-primary system for most offices.
Instead, all candidates appear on a single, nonpartisan primary ballot. The top four vote-getters advance. The US Senate race carries the clearest national stakes because it could tip control of the chamber.
The governor’s race is worth watching because of its exceptionally crowded and competitive field. Seventeen candidates are running to replace Alaska’s staunchly pro-Trump Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy, who is barred by term limits from seeking a third term. Among them is former Governor Bill Walker, who is running as an independent.
Republican candidates include former state Senators Click Bishop, Shelley Hughes and Lesil McGuire, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, former state revenue Commissioner Adam Crum, Matanuska-Susitna Borough Mayor Edna DeVries, former state Attorney General Treg Taylor and business owner and conservative activist Bernadette Wilson. Former state Senator Tom Begich and former state Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins are the two Democrats in the race. Meanwhile, sixteen candidates are running for Alaska’s US Senate seat, but the race has two chief frontrunners: incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan and former Democratic Representative Mary Peltola.
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