Sarah Palin files to run for the late Alaska Rep. Don Young's seat

By NPR Staff

Published April 1, 2022 at 8:58 PM EDT

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin answers questions from the media as she arrives at a federal court in Manhattan on February 15, 2022, in New York.

Updated April 3, 2022 at 9:00 PM ET

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice presidential candidate, filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission for the special election to fill out the term of the late Alaska Rep. Don Young.

"America is at a tipping point. As I've watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight," Palin said in a statement announcing her candidacy.

Palin filed an hour before Friday's filing deadline to join a 50-candidate field. On Sunday night, she picked up the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

https://t.co/CrlfiG8MJn pic.twitter.com/uOwZVviLgr
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) April 2, 2022

Young, who was the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. House, died at age 88 on March 18. He was first elected to the House in 1973.

Sen. John McCain selected Palin to be his running mate in his 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama. Palin was elected governor in 2006 after serving on the city council and as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla.

She resigned as governor in 2009, citing the financial pressures of fighting off a number of ethics complaints filed against her.

Since then, Palin has been a political contributor on Fox News and appears regularly on conservative media outlets. She endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

In 2020, she appeared as a contestant on "The Masked Singer."

In mid-February, Palin lost her defamation suit against the New York Times that stemmed from a June 2017 editorial that wrongly claimed a link between an ad from her political action committee and the shooting at a constituent event being held by then-Rep. Gabby Giffords that killed six and wounded several others, including Giffords.

The special election for Young's seat will be the first to employ Alaska's new voting system. It begins with an open primary on June 11 with all candidates on one ballot. The top four finishers will appear on the general election ballot in August.

Alaska Public Media's Liz Ruskin contributed to this report.