Alaska Senate candidate drops out of race

Buzz Kelley, a retired mechanic who placed fourth in the Alaska Senate primary earlier this year, announced on Monday he would be dropping out of the race and offered his endorsement to GOP contender Kelly Tshibaka.

“In light of the [Mary] Peltola — what I call divide and conquer victory over [Sarah] Palin, [Nick] Begich, just want to announce that I am suspending my campaign,” Kelley said while speaking on The Dan Fagan Show.

“And I’m asking all those who supported me and my ideas or my ideas, if you would now please throw your support behind Kelly Tshibaka. She is our best bet to deny [Lisa] Murkowski.”

The Republican candidate was referring to Alaska’s special election for the House, which saw Peltola, a Democrat, win over Palin and Begich, two Republican candidates. Republicans attribute the loss to ticket-splitting among voters.

Peltola will seek a full term in office in the November midterm.

Kelley missed the deadline to withdraw his name from the Senate race, which the Alaska Division of Elections says must be done by the 64th day ahead of the election. That means his name will still appear on the ballot in November, along with Murkowski, Tshibaka and Democrat Patricia Chesbro.

In November, voters in the state will get a second chance to use the new ranked-choice voting system, which requires voters to rank their choices by preference. If no candidate receives more than half of the vote outright in the initial tabulation, the candidate who placed last gets knocked out.

Any voters who placed the eliminated candidate first has their vote redistributed to their second preferred pick. The process continues until one candidate gets more than half the vote.

The development comes as Murkowski is fighting for her political life against Tshibaka, who has been endorsed by former President Trump. Trump has targeted Murkowski, even holding a rally for his endorsees in the state earlier this summer, over her criticisms of him and her vote to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

But Murkowski has navigated competitive political environments before, including winning reelection in 2010 as a write-in candidate after she was unable to notch the GOP nomination earlier that year under the state’s previous primary system.