Yes, Sarah Palin Is Running for Congress in Alaska

It’s not some April Fool’s joke.

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Apparently hungry for a political comeback, former Alaska governor and failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced late Friday that she is running for Congress. 

Palin, whose announcement initially caused some to wonder if it was perhaps an April Fool’s joke, joins a competitive field to fill Alaska’s lone congressional seat following the death of Rep. Don Young last month. Palin is often credited with ushering fringe Tea Party politics into the mainstream, and ultimately paving the way for the election of Donald Trump.

“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 that also warned that America was at a “tipping point.”

While she hasn’t had a political role in over a decade, Palin has managed to remain a fixture in the news, particularly through her various stabs at media success. First came a poorly reviewed and barely watched reality television show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” Then, in 2014, Palin launched a subscriber-based online news channel, the “Sarah Palin Channel.” That venture quickly folded.

But Palin’s most recent 15 minutes of fame came in January during a visit to New York City for her federal defamation case against the New York Times, when she tested positive for Covid and was seen hitting the town unmasked, despite her diagnosis. The judge said Palin lacked sufficient evidence, and the jury, in any case, ruled against her, but Palin said she intended to seek a new trial.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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