Peltola, who had been a long shot, wins the temporary U.S. House seat for Alaska on her 49th birthday

Nick Begich the third attacked Sarah Palin throughout his campaign, seeing the former Alaska governor as his biggest rival.

This cost him and Palin dearly, we now know.

Former State Rep. Mary Peltola ran a positive campaign and managed to win the temporary seat in the U.S. Congress, which will help make her a strong contender for the two-year term, which will be decided in November.

In a big upset, Peltola, who turned 49 Wednesday, won via the new Ranked Choice Voting system because about half of Begich’s 53,000-plus voters picked Palin as a second choice.

Put another way, Peltola won because about nearly one-third of Begich voters picked her second. And about 11,000 Begich voters made no second-choice vote, which helped Peltola keep a winning edge over Palin.

As the Begich second-place votes show, there are many conservatives in Alaska who refuse to vote for Palin, remembering the way she quit her job as governor in 2009, claiming she did it for the good of the state.

Peltola’s victory scrambles the race for the two-year term in November and complicates matters for Republicans.

If Begich and Palin continue to snipe at each other, Peltola will gain. If they don’t snipe at each other, Peltola will gain.

Begich will not take kindly to demands to drop out and unify behind Palin. Palin will not take kindly to requests to drop out of the race and unify behind Begich.

Palin and Begich will start to attack Peltola, stepping up the complaints that have so far been made by the Republican Party, blaming Peltola for everything from the national debt to inflation.

On Wednesday, Begich and Palin sniped at each other during the Alaska Oil and Gas Association forum in Anchorage. Begich attacked Palin for raising taxes on the oil industry to the point of “absurdity” and said she has been “largely absent from the Alaska policy-making scene for years.”

Palin replied, “Negative Nick, you’re what’s wrong with politics today.”

She claimed that Begich had attacked her as not being a “real Alaskan.”

But Palin was either not listening or listening only for the word “absent,” as she misrepresented what Begich had said a few minutes before she spoke. She has been absent from the “policy-making scene” for years. And she is defensive to an extreme.

Addressing “Negative Nick,” Palin said, “For him to suggest that I’m not a real Alaskan, ask anybody who actually knows me and who has been here for, well I’ve been here, lifelong Alaskan. You get to the state, nobody asking you where the heck you been? And I’ve been promoting Alaska throughout the world. I’ll continue to do so because Alaska is America’s key to energy independence!”

For Peltola, the victory means that she will be the beneficiary of enormous national attention. That was obvious Wednesday within minutes of the vote announcement shortly after 4 p.m.

She will have no problem now raising money for November.

There was this in the Washington Post Wednesday night:

“It is overwhelming. And it’s a very good feeling. “‘I’m very grateful Alaskans have put their trust in me,' Peltola said in an interview with The Washington Post shortly after her victory at the office of her campaign consultants, where she had to break away in the middle of the conversation to take a call from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). ‘I will be immediately going to work.’”

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