Craig Campbell (politician) December 2010, after having withdrawn from the Republican primary race for lieutenant governor, which was eventually won by Mead Treadwell. Before serving as lieutenant governor, Campbell was the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. In that role, he was head of the state's National Guard, with the rank of Lieutenant General. On July 3, 2009, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced that she would resign effective July 26. Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell would become governor, and Campbell would replace Parnell as lieutenant governor. In 2010, Campbell opted to not seek election as lieutenant governor, preferring to return
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