Alaska's ranked choice voting gets its first major test.

August 17, 2022 12:44 PM

Back in 2020, by a small margin, Alaskans passed a ballot referendum to change the state's voting rules to ranked choice voting. Last night, in a special election to fill the US Congress seat vacated when long-time Alaska Congressman Don Young passed away earlier this year, the new voting method had its first major test in a tight contest to see who will be Alaska's new Congressperson.

Although the rules adopted under the 2020 ballot measure call for a final ballot with the top four finishers from a blanket primary, a drop-out shortly after the primary left this race with only three names on the final ballot.

The most famous nationally, and receiving the most media attention throughout the race, is former Alaska governor, one-time Republican VP candidate, reality television personality, and Trump endorsee Sarah Palin.

Also running as a Republican is Nick Begich III, former campaign co-chair for the deceased Congressman Young and member of a well-known Alaska political family.

But after polls closed last night, and with 323 of 402 precincts having reported, the current leader in the race (by an approximately 5% margin over the next closest competitor) is Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, a Yup'ik woman from Bethel, Alaska, who formerly represented the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region in the Alaska State Legislature for ten years and co-founded the Bush Caucus with legislators from other remote communities.

With no candidate passing the 50% threshold for outright victory, and with Begich trailing both Peltola and Palin by a margin unlikely to be overcome by the remaining precincts, the race will probably be decided by the second-choice votes cast by Begich's supporters. Will they choose party over personality, or has Sarah Palin outworn her welcome in Alaska politics? Results will likely not be known until August 31st, the deadline for mail ballots postmarked before election day to be received by the state Division of Elections.

posted by Nerd of the North (34 comments total)

There's a lot of speculation today inside Alaska as to what these results mean and the short answer is: nobody knows. With the current positions:

1. 38.0% - Mary Peltola
2. 31.9% - Sarah Palin
3. 28.5% - Nick Begich III

Peltola appears to have a small lead. She's even picked up a bit more lead since I put together the FPP, which is not totally unexpected, as the unreported precincts are going to be significantly biased towards small, geographically remote communities, of the sort that Peltola spent years advocating for as a member of the Alaska legislature's Bush Caucus. But it's not believable that her lead will widen enough to push her past the 50% threshold in the first round, so it's definitely going to come down to ranked choice.

The prevailing wisdom in the state, based on some polling but also quite a bit of outright speculation, is that if Begich were in second place currently he would be the likely winner - that Palin voters would have marked any other Republican as their second choice before opting for Peltola.

However, despite the name recognition that cruised her to a first-place finish in the primary, brought her an endorsement from Trump, and brings out-of-state funding to her campaign, Sarah Palin also brings a lot of baggage to the race. With Begich trailing in third place, unless he passes Palin when the few quixotic write-in voters have their votes redistributed to their second choices (if any) then Begich will be the first of the major candidates to go and his votes will be redistributed according to the ranked choice algorithm. The race will then be decided by how many Begich voters chose to make no second choice selection, or named Peltola their second choice, in a lot of cases out of distaste for Palin. (This is what I meant in the FPP write-up by "will [Begich supporters] choose party over personality?")

It'll be weeks until we know for sure, but at least at the present time there is a plausible path to victory for a pro-choice Democrat to win Alaska's lone congressional seat, for the next three months at least. [The special election is only for the remaining months of Don Young's interrupted term. The office will be decided again in November for the next two-year congressional term, but the winner of the special election will have a substantial leg-up in the November race.]
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:28 PM on August 17, 2022 [20 favorites]

I've no specific expertise regarding Alaska, but these are Republicans we're talking about. I have a hard time seeing most of those Begich voters doing anything besides holding their noses if need be and voting for Palin second.
posted by Naberius at 1:40 PM on August 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thanks for the great post! Even if she does not win, it’s super exciting that Mary Peltola is doing so well at the moment.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:58 PM on August 17, 2022 [11 favorites]

There should have been a referendum on the ballot that would require Palin, if elected, to wear her rainbow bear suit from the Masked Singer 24/7.

And a second that would require her to wear it 24/7 if she is not elected.
posted by delfin at 3:17 PM on August 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Yeah, this is an excellent post, well explained, and I'm very interested to see how the votes ultimately come out.

I try not to predict outcomes because I just have no blessed idea what's going to happen, but unlike Naberius, I can see Begich voters casting their second-choice votes for Peltola, both because not all Republicans are extremist Republicans (see Liz Cheney), and also because 58% of Alaskans are registered Unaffiliated, and surely a good chunk of the Begich votes came from those voters.

Nerd of the North, I really appreciate the background and perspective you provided. Thank you for this great post!
posted by kristi at 3:45 PM on August 17, 2022 [8 favorites]

What I'm going to say might not apply to the Alaskan context. But GOP voters in Maine have seemed more likely to just rank their top choice than Democrats are (Dems tend to fill out their ballots more completely). This is consistent with online discussions I've been in that include conservatives, where they seemed less disposed to rank anyone but their top choice.

If this holds for Alaska, expect a fair number of Begich ballots to exhaust rather than go to Palin.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 3:51 PM on August 17, 2022 [7 favorites]

Palin punked out after 2-1/2 years as governor. Could she handle a term in Congress?
posted by kirkaracha at 4:24 PM on August 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Regardless of how this all goes I’m confident in the answer to that question.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:33 PM on August 17, 2022

...if Begich were in second place currently he would be the likely winner - that Palin voters would have marked any other Republican as their second choice before opting for Peltola.

The interesting twist I've read is that Trump, when giving his endorsement for Palin, told voters to "pick only one" candidate on the ballot.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:45 PM on August 17, 2022 [7 favorites]

Kristi , what does 'registered Unaffiliated' mean re being enrolled to vote?
posted by unearthed at 6:29 PM on August 17, 2022

The interesting twist I've read is that Trump, when giving his endorsement for Palin, told voters to "pick only one" candidate on the ballot.

Sorry, Eric. Also, sorry, other Eric.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:00 PM on August 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

unearthed, I only know what I read online, heh -

I found the Unaffiliated statistic at Wikipedia's page on Alaska, under Voter registration.

A bit more searching around shows those are just voters with no declared party - not Democrats, not Republicans, not any other party. According to Open Primaries, "Voters are given the option to affiliate or not to affiliate with a political party on the registration form. 58% of Alaska voters are registered unaffiliated, undeclared or independent."
posted by kristi at 8:25 PM on August 17, 2022

Thanks Kristi, America seems so alien, we in NZ just register to vote (we have to register by law, and that is public information), alth' whether one votes is up to the person. I would't want anyone to know I had an interest in any particular party.
posted by unearthed at 8:31 PM on August 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

That's one of the things I love about MetaFilter, unearthed - getting to find out how things are in other parts of the world.

So you probably know that in the USA, the two major parties are Democrat and Republican. There are also a bunch of small "third" parties, like the Green Party and the Libertarian Party.

Decisions about elections - especially state-level elections and anything more local - are mostly up to the states, so details about voting, registration, and party affiliation vary from one state to another. In particular, in some states, primaries are open, and so anyone can vote for any candidate; in other states, primaries are closed, so only voters registered as Democrats can vote for the Democratic candidates for, say, governor or secretary of state, and only Republicans can vote for the Republican candidates. (More at this FairVote article on Open and Closed Primaries: "For example, if a district routinely elects the Democratic nominee, Republican voters may vote in the Democratic party primary to attempt to influence the outcome. This could be a good-faith attempt to select a more conservative Democratic nominee who would be palatable to the Republican voters, or it could be sabotage, an attempt to nominate a weaker candidate who is easier to defeat in the general election.")

And I think there are a lot of Americans who are attracted to being Independents or Unaffiliated - like you, some people would rather not have their preference made public; some people prefer the flexibility of being able to vote for either party's candidates; some people really don't have a strong identification with either major party; and then there's the fact that many of us Americans really like to think of ourselves as fiercely independent - like, sure, I completely agree with the Democratic Party 99% of the time, but I COULD vote either way! At any time! I am FREE and INDEPENDENT and UNFETTERED! Heh.

So, in many states - especially states with open primaries - there's no particular benefit to registering as a Democrat or a Republican, and there's always the pleasant feeling of being a free spirit if you register as Independent.

I'm pretty sure I was originally registered as Independent but switched to Democrat for a particular closed primary in which I wanted to be able to vote for a Democratic candidate.

There. Much more information than you bargained for, I'm sure - I hope it's at least mildly interesting!
posted by kristi at 9:22 PM on August 17, 2022 [8 favorites]

I live in NZ, but I lived in the US for a couple of decades - one thing I always wondered about the primary system was that one is only allowed to register to vote in one party's primary, why can't I vote in all of them - surely the freedom of assembly right given to me by the constitution means that the state can't limit what party I am part of, maybe I am a member of the Greens and the Republicans (maybe I'm not).

Now equally I agree that parties are allowed to limit who their members and have whatever rules that make sense to them for picking candidates (modulo laws around discrimination/etc) but if they want to contract the states to hold their candidate elections for them I think they have to work within the limitations that the states have to work under.

Here in NZ we don't have primaries parties use a bunch of different rules, National seems to use smoke filled rooms to pick the richest school bully they can find, the Greens use consensus in a way that I don't really understand that can take ages to work its way out - the methods seem to fit the mindsets of the various parties
posted by mbo at 10:41 PM on August 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

I was running numbers earlier this evening, and I don’t think Mary can pull it out for the special. Counterintuitively to me, it looks like exhausted ballots don’t help Mary—if the percent of Nick’s voters who choose Sarah second is held constant (say some value s) then as the percent of blanks increases, the final percent Mary gets decreases. It looks like about 40% of Nick’s voters would have to have ranked Mary second for her to get past 50%, and I just don’t think that’s likely.

I mean, maybe? If there were a ton of vaguely progressive leaning folks who thought they were voting for Mark Begich instead of Nick Begich? But somehow they hadn’t heard enough about Mary Peltola to vote for her first? But I don’t believe it. And even if the 2000 or so first choice write in votes were all for Tara Sweeney and they all ranked Mary second…but I don’t think it’ll be enough.

It’s a real bummer—Mary will be great as our representative. I’ve got hope that we’ll have a higher turnout in November and that will get her over the edge for the regular election. It’ll all come down to turnout.

(Well, that and the governor’s race. The numbers coming out of the primary are grim. We’ve got to get more folks out to vote, and we’ve got to get everyone voting for Gara to vote Walker #2 and vice versa. Because we won’t survive another round of Funleavy.)
posted by leahwrenn at 10:56 PM on August 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I agree with you on all counts leahwrenn. I am pretty sure we just have a Palin 🤡 show in Congress for a couple months once we run the second round in a couple weeks but I do have (a small….it’s still Alaska politics, it’s still pretty deep red) hope that maybe we can get Peltola in there in the general. She really seems to have gotten a ton of momentum and is running a pretty tight and competent campaign ship from what I can see. I do think Republicans are used to turning out for primaries and the other side is not since it’s generally not worth the bother here, so perhaps we get a few more of our folks out in November than we did yesterday.

I was a heartened by some of the primary results showing more centrist Rs polling ahead of the full whackadoos we would have gotten out of a Republican primary in a few state house and senate races (Merrill/Giessel/Massie) and overall I think RCV may save us from Tshibaka being in the U.S. Senate, for which I am grateful. The governor’s race results had me pretty shook and I hope Walker and Gara figure out some way to work together to convince their voters to rank the other second in the general.
posted by charmedimsure at 1:39 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Here’s a gift version of the NY Times article on Peltola that came out today- it’s a pretty nice profile. I was happy to see this after mostly seeing headlines about Palin and unnamed competitors last night in Outside sources.
posted by charmedimsure at 1:54 AM on August 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

The odds are odd for special election: Palin a strong favorite and Peltola a 7-1 longshot, which differs from polls. [from Aug. 10]

“This is ass backwards,” said Ivan Moore, head of Alaska Survey Research, whose polling for the state’s races is generally cited by national pundit/prediction sites such as FiveThirtyEight.

posted by viborg at 11:52 AM on August 18, 2022

She really seems to have gotten a ton of momentum and is running a pretty tight and competent campaign ship from what I can see.

I have had a fair bit of interaction with her campaign and I would echo that. They're doing a pretty great job with what they've got.

I'm not with the campaign and don't have any inside info, but as far as I can tell their biggest disadvantage is not having the resources either of her opponents have had - both Begich and Palin have personal fortunes to draw on as well, I presume, as access to the kinds of oil company and out-of-state SuperPAC funding that usually flow to Republican candidates in this state.

Begich, in particular, seems to have spent a bunch - I probably got 20 Begich mailers in the weeks before the special, and I think one from Peltola. And for about six weeks ahead of the vote I got a Begich ad about 90% of the time if I watched a YouTube video on a device that doesn't have ad blocking.

I hope that her strong finish in the special election will improve her visibility heading into the November full-term election, both in-state and out-, for donors looking to back a pro-choice woman with a real shot at flipping a traditionally red seat.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:43 PM on August 18, 2022 [6 favorites]

With the vote having occurred on August 16th, updated totals were provided a week after the vote took place (that is, updated info was provided this past Tuesday, August 23rd). A final result is still not expected until August 31st, but Peltola has increased her lead slightly over the figures provided on the 16th. The current state of the race is:

1. 38.9% - Mary Peltola (up from 38.0%)
2. 31.4% - Sarah Palin (down from 31.9%)
3. 28.2% - Nick Begich III (down from 28.5%)

The most important development in this latest addition of counted ballots is that Begich does not seem to be closing the gap with Palin to overtake her in second place.

Prognosticators mostly seem to agree that if Begich managed second place before the ranked-choice instant run-off he would be the likely winner, as he would be expected to reap the large majority of Palin voters' second-choice votes.

Nobody is quite as sure what will happen with Begich voters' second-choice selections.

Peltola's widening lead over both Republican candidates increases her chances slightly, but it will still come down to the backup choices selected (or not) by voters using ranked choice for the first time, making the final outcome impossible to predict at this time.

Tangientially related: in a development which does not affect the special election being decided on the 31st but might slightly influence the full-term election being held in November, Republican Tara Sweeney, who was expected to be the fourth choice on the November ballot, has withdrawn her name from that race. Sweeney, an Iñupiaq woman from the Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) area and former assistant secretary of the interior for Native American affairs, was expected to compete with Peltola for votes in Alaska's rural communities.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:03 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Republican Tara Sweeney, who was expected to be the fourth choice on the November ballot, has withdrawn her name from that race..

Upon checking further, Sweeney has announced her intention to suspend her campaign. That's not (yet?) the same as withdrawing her name from the ballot. I am not sure whether her name will appear on the November ballot, or whether anyone else's will appear in its place.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:12 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Final results in the special election are supposedly due this afternoon.

Apparently they'll release the news at 4 pm Alaska time (about 40 minutes from now) but I'll be out (the salmon are jumping up some local falls and I am hoping to get a decent bear photo or two under good lighting conditions.)

According to the Anchorage Daily News the result will be live-streamed on the Division of Elections Facebook page (which I won't be able to view anyway because I am one of those cranky anti-social-media types.)

If nobody beats me to it, I'll post an update tonight once the results are available via other sources.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:24 PM on August 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

HOLY SHIT IT FEELS GOOD TO BE WRONG!!! Peltola did it!!!
posted by charmedimsure at 5:08 PM on August 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

Woooohoooooo!!!! I am so thrilled for her, for Alaska, for everyone! What a nailbiter!
posted by mochapickle at 6:59 PM on August 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

Don Young was literally the only House representation I have ever had and I am FORTY-THREE. This is so great; I hope Peltola carries this momentum through to the general and that Begich and Palin keep swiping at each other.

About 50% of Begich voters either did not vote for a second choice or picked Peltola over Palin. Republican talk radio has gone wild and is insisting this is all because ranked choice voting is confusing. Too bad they’re not reflecting on what a uniquely terrible/unlikeable even in a deep red state candidate Palin is…or maybe it’s good, because I need the same thing to happen in this race in November.
posted by charmedimsure at 7:15 PM on August 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

Yes, I’m happy to be wrong on this one too.
posted by Naberius at 7:20 PM on August 31, 2022

According to the Washington Post, half of Begich’s voters ranked Palin second, 21% didn’t make a second place vote, and a surprising 29% flipped to the Democrat. That was enough to keep Peltola ahead by 5200 votes.
posted by Naberius at 7:38 PM on August 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

Republican talk radio has gone wild and is insisting this is all because ranked choice voting is confusing.

So they think that telling 29% of voters that they were stupid is the way to lure them back to the light?
posted by Etrigan at 7:47 PM on August 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

So they think that telling 29% of voters that they were stupid is the way to lure them back to the light?

Sure, it’s not the strategy that I’d choose but I do hope they run with it. 🤷‍♀️
posted by charmedimsure at 10:03 PM on August 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

I hope nobody here is tired of me quoting Letters from an American by historian Heather Cox Richardson, because I never get tired of quoting her - this just hit my email inbox:

In Alaska tonight, Mary Peltola, who is Yup’ik, won a special election for the House seat left vacant after the death of Republican Don Young. A tribal fisheries manager and close family friend of the Youngs, Peltola defeated former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who was endorsed by former president Trump, to become the first Democrat in 50 years and the first woman ever to hold the seat and, while she was at it, the first Alaska Native ever elected to Congress. After winning Alaska’s House seat through ranked-choice voting, Peltola will again compete for it with Palin and her other challenger, Nick Begich III, in the regular election in November.

Executive Director of Voters of Tomorrow Santiago Mayer pointed out that the last time a Democrat sat in Alaska’s House seat was the same year the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. “If that’s not a…sign,” he tweeted, “I don’t know what is.”

My gigantic, enthusiastic congratulations to Peltola, everyone who worked on her campaign, everyone who voted for her, everyone who lives in Alaska, and everyone who lives in America, who will have the benefit of her service for at least a short while - and, here's hoping, for many years to come.
posted by kristi at 10:43 PM on August 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

After winning Alaska’s House seat through ranked-choice voting, Peltola will again compete for it with Palin and her other challenger, Nick Begich III, in the regular election in November.

...Why do I suddenly feel like we're all living in that moment in a horror movie where everyone is finally relaxed because they killed the monster, but then right at the end there's that fake-out and it comes back?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:51 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

...Why do I suddenly feel like we're all living in that moment in a horror movie where everyone is finally relaxed because they killed the monster, but then right at the end there's that fake-out and it comes back?

I didn't hear no bell.
posted by Etrigan at 7:33 AM on September 1, 2022

Assuming the same three candidates run again in the general, and assuming nothing big happens to change voters' minds between now and then, I'd imagine at least the first place voting will look a lot like this. I think the big question is those 21 percent of Begich voters who didn't mark a second choice. Did they do that because they didn't want anybody if they couldn't have Begich? Did they really not understand ranked choice voting, or perhaps just refuse to go along with it in a fit of pique?

If the latter, now they've seen what happens when they don't vote a second choice. Will they do so in the general, and which way will they go?
posted by Naberius at 8:21 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]