Alaska congressional runoff appears to include man with N.J. roots vs. Sarah Palin

Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin leads a field of 48 candidates in a special election for Congress in Alaska on Saturday, but an independent with ties to New Jersey appears headed to an August 16 runoff election to replace Republican Don Young.

Young, Alaska’s congressman since 1973, died in March while on a plane returning to Alaska.  He was 88.

Dr. Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon and commercial fisherman who ran for U.S. Senate two years ago, comes from an Essex County family.

His father, Avrum Gross, grew up in South Orange and West Orange before moving to Alaska in the 1960s.

After law school, Avrum Gross took a job working for the Alaska Legislative Affairs Agency – their version of the Office of Legislative Services – where he forged a friendship with a young state legislator and bush pilot named Jay Hammond.

After Hammond was elected governor in 1974 – he defeated a former Democratic governor by just 287 votes statewide – he picked Av Gross, a Democrat, as attorney general of Alaska.

Al Gross’ grandfather, Joel, was a lawyer in Newark and chaired the Essex County United Jewish Appeal.   In 1948, when former Vice President Henry Wallace mounted an independent campaign for the presidency, Joel Gross served as vice chairman of the newly-formed Independent Progressive Party.  He previously served as an executive board member of the New Jersey Independent Citizens League.

Vision Media, one of the top political consulting firms in New Jersey, is working for Gross.

With a little less than three-quarters of the votes counted, Palin, a former governor, leads with 29.8%, followed by Republican Nick Begich III at 19.3%, Gross with 12.5%, Democrat Mary Peltola, a former state representative, in fourth place with 7.5%.  Another  GOP candidate, Tara Sweeney, is less than two points out of fourth place with 5.25%.

Running sixth out of 48 is former North Pole Mayor Pro-Tempore Santa Claus – really, that’s his name – a supporter of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns.   Claus is at 4.5%.

The top four vote-getters make the runoff, where ranked-choice voting will be used for the first time in Alaska.

Begich also has ties to New Jersey, albeit less directly.

His grandfather, Democrat Nick Begich, Sr., was seeking a second term as the congressman from Alaska in October 1972 when a small plane carrying him and House Majority Leader Hale Boggs (D-Louisiana) on a campaign swing in Alaska went missing.  The plane, or the remains of the two congressmen, were never found.   Begich was posthumously re-elected in 1972, defeating Young by twelve percentage points.

Boggs was the father of Barbara Boggs Sigmund, a former mayor of Princeton, Mercer County Freeholder, and a candidate for the 1989 Democratic gubernatorial nomination.  His grandson,  Paul Sigmund, had also been a Mercer County Freeholder.

Begich III is the nephew of Mark Begich, a Democrat who served one term in the U.S. Senate before Sullivan unseated him in 2014.  Another uncle is Tom Begich, a Democrat who currently serves in the Alaska State Senate.