WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin has announced a run for the Alaska’s only seat in the US House of Representatives, her first bid for political office in more than a decade.

“America is at a tipping point,” Palin said. “As I’ve watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight”.

Palin made history in 2008 by becoming the first woman to appear on a national Republican ticket, as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate. The pair lost to Democrat Barack Obama.

The 58-year-old former governor of Alaska and fiery supporter of ex-President Donald Trump joins a field of about 40 candidates hoping to succeed Don Young, who died last month.

In her statement, Palin appealed to conservative voters worried about illegal immigration and “socialist” policies enacted by the Democrats, as well as issues like high inflation and petrol prices.

After losing out to the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008, Palin, a self described “hockey mom”, became one of the most recognizable voices of the Republican Tea Party movement, and later starred in two reality television shows about her family.

Her brand of combative conservatism and anti-establishment appeal has led many to consider her as the political precursor to Donald Trump, whose successful bid to become Republican president she supported in 2016.

Since Trump’s 2020 election loss, Palin has repeated the former president’s unfounded claims that the election was tarnished by fraud.

In February this year Sarah Palin returned to the headlines when a New York City jury rejected her lawsuit against the New York Times newspaper, which she claimed had defamed her by linking her in an editorial article to a deadly shooting. — BBC