U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens won his Alaska Republican primary race less than a month after his indictment on corruption charges, while Rep. Don Young’s bid for a 19th term was too close to call.
Young, the longest-serving House member in state history, led Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell by 145 votes out of more than 93,000 cast in Tuesday’s election.
Mailed ballots and the results from several precincts around the state haven’t yet been counted, a process that may delay establishing a winner until next week, officials said.
Stevens, 84, who was charged last month with failing to report gifts from an oil-services company, received 59,024 votes, or 64 percent, in a seven- way race, with 98 percent of precincts reporting. He predicted he will win the general election in November.
“I expect this campaign to continue to build steam right through the general election,” said Stevens. “I’m a Republican, and this is a Republican state.”
Anchorage Mayor Mark Beg- ich, who won the Democratic primary to oppose Stevens, said Alaska residents want a new direction. Voters will support “someone with new ideas for solving the challenges facing our state,” Begich said.
While just 15 percent of the state’s voters are registered Democrats, the ethical cloud over Stevens and other GOP lawmakers in the state gives Democrats hope of winning their first congressional seats there in more than a quarter century.
In April, Congress voted to ask the Justice Department to probe whether Young made a last-minute change to a highway bill, after it had been given final approval, to include a $10 million project benefiting a Florida land developer who had donated to his campaign.
Young and Stevens also backed the so-called bridge to nowhere, a proposal to spend $223 million to link the Alaskan town of Ketchikan to an island with 50 full-time residents, which became a symbol of wasteful spending.
