Sean Parnell July 2009, when Governor Palin resigned her position, Parnell became governor and finished the term of office. In 2010, Parnell won a four-year term as governor in his own right. In 2005, Parnell ran and won in the Republican primary to become lieutenant governor. Afterward, in the general election, he was paired with Sarah Palin as her running mate. In Alaska, the lieutenant governor candidates run separately from the governor candidates in the primary election race, but after the primaries, the nominees for governor and lieutenant governor run together as a slate. Palin and Parnell were elected with 48.33% of
Sean Parnell Palin resigned. Parnell replaced her becoming Alaska's tenth governor in accordance with the Alaska Constitution. Craig Campbell, commissioner of Alaska's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, succeeded Parnell as lieutenant governor after Palin first named Joe Schmidt, commissioner of corrections as a replacement for Parnell and Schmidt resigned from the second-in-line position on July 6, 2009. Parnell ran for a full term as governor in 2010. In the primary, he faced off against Bill Walker, a former mayor of Valdez, Alaska and aide to former governor Walter J. Hickel, and Ralph Samuels, a retiring member of the Alaska House of