Palin’s unexpected bid jolts Alaska

Sarah Palin considered running for president in 2012, was “seriously interested” in the office four years later and said she’d run for vice president again “in a heartbeat.” Last year, she teased — and prayed about — a potential U.S. Senate run. For all that, it nevertheless caught Republicans off guard — including in Palin’s home state — when the former governor of Alaska actually did announce her comeback bid, entering a U.S. House race on Friday. Palin had been one of the GOP’s original populists — mocked when John McCain made her his running mate in 2008, then relegated to the periphery of conservative politics, unpopular even in her home state. Now, after Donald Trump mainstreamed her brand of outrage, she is running for public office again, testing the limits of a damaged politician’s rehabilitation in a party that looks nothing like the one she belonged to when she first burst onto the national stage.

“There had been speculation, but I was surprised,” said Cynthia Henry, the Republican national committeewoman from Alaska. “She will certainly be a contender. Beyond that … I don’t know how it will be received.” Henry said, “She hasn’t been active in politics since the run for vice president and her service as governor. She hasn’t been involved, or I haven’t seen her at events.” In the race to fill the House seat left vacant by the late Rep. Don Young, Palin is no shoo-in. Though she once enjoyed sky-high public approval ratings in Alaska, her reputation deteriorated after she resigned from the governorship in 2009 — a self-inflicted wound from which she has not seemed to recover. When the longtime Alaska pollster Ivan Moore of Alaska Survey Research tested Palin’s standing with Alaskans in October, he said her favorability rating stood at 31 percent. “Let’s face it,” Moore said Saturday. “She has been substantively underwater for many, many years now, and it really dates back to when she quit.” Moore said, “Alaskans weren’t very impressed with that.” One Republican strategist familiar with the campaign in the state called Palin “certainly the favorite, just because everyone knows her.”