Mary Peltola, a Blue Dog Democrat who won her seat in a 2022 upset, is Alaska's first Native woman congressional representative. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via ZUMA Press

This year, America’s largest state is primed to play a key role in deciding who controls the House of Representatives.

Incumbent Mary Peltola (D-Alaska)—the state’s first Native woman elected to Congress and the first Democratic representative in 50 years—will defend her seat in a close race against challenger Nick Begich III. Begich is a software developer, part-owner of a conspiracy-theory publishing company, and the surprise Republican heir to a several-generation Democratic political lineage.

Peltola’s win was a surprise upset in 2022. She beat former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on a campaign of “fish, family, and freedom,” promising to “ignore Lower 48 partisanship” and focus on solutions. In Congress, she has been a member of the new “Blue Dog Democrats,” a loose group of 11 Democratic members who push centrist policies.

Alaska uses ranked-choice voting. So, while the winner will almost certainly be Peltola or Begich, the secondary selections of voters who chose minor-candidate voters will matter, too. (The process will also slow down ballot tabulation, meaning we may not know the outcome on Election Day itself.)

In Alaska, rural areas tend to hew to the Democratic Party line, while cities vote red. It’s a place where the top issues aren’t the “culture wars you’ll see downstate,” as Michelle Sparck, director of the nonprofit Get Out The Native Vote, put it. “60 percent of Alaskans do not identify for one party or another.” Instead, the things people are likely to hinge........

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