The political landscape just keeps getting better for Democrats.
Mary Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker, on Wednesday was declared the winner of the special election to finish out the remainder of the late Rep. Don Young's (R-Alaska) term in the House, scoring an upset victory over two Republicans in a reliably red state that former President Trump carried by 10 points less than two years ago.
Peltola, who will be the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress as well as the first woman to serve as the state's lone representative in the House, defeated Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, and Nick Begich III, a staunch conservative from Alaska's most prominent Democratic family, in a race that tested the state's new ranked-choice voting system, in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference.
Any conclusions drawn from the results come with some caveats. Peltola will be on the ballot once again in November when she'll seek a full term in the House. And special elections are hardly seen as reliable predictors of a party's chances in regularly scheduled general elections.
There's also the open question of whether Peltola's win was more a vote of confidence in Democrats or simply a rejection of Palin, a former Republican political star who irked many Alaskans when she resigned as governor after she and the late Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) lost the 2008 presidential election.
But Peltola's victory in the special election is the latest sign that Democrats are gaining momentum heading into the final stretch before the 2022 midterm elections, a little more than a week after Democrats notched another key victory in the special election in New York's 19th Congressional District.
Those two wins, combined with a series of solid performances by Democrats in other recent special elections, are among a growing list of signs that the political environment may be improving for the party that has spent much of the past year bracing for an electoral thrashing in 2022.
Recent polling shows Democrats in their strongest position in months on the generic ballot, a question that asks voters which party they would rather see win control of Congress. A Wall Street Journal poll released on Thursday found Democrats regaining an edge over Republicans on that question after the same survey in March found them trailing the GOP by 5 points.
Also on Thursday, The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan handicapper, shifted five more House races toward Democrats, including Peltola's race, which moved from a "Likely" Republican win to a toss-up.
Let's be clear: Democrats are still facing a tough political landscape this year. President Biden's approval rating is still underwater and the party in power almost always loses ground in Congress in midterm elections. Democrats are also defending an already-narrow majority and Republicans appear likely to pick up a handful of seats thanks to the redistricting process alone.
In other words, Democrats are in a better position than they were even a month ago, but that alone is far from a guarantee that their majorities in the House and Senate will be spared.
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