When it comes to the second choice of Begich voters in Peltola’s victory in Alaska on Wednesday, Aaron Blake of WaPo clarifies that their second choice is actually slightly worse for members of the Alaska Republican Party (ARP) than my interpretation suggested:
Almost as many Begich voters picked Peltola as their second choice (15,445) or didn’t rank one of the two finalists (11,222) as ranked Palin behind Begich (27,042). In other words, only about half of Begich voters were willing to also rank Palin ahead of a Democrat.
Which is very bad news for every extremist candidate fielded by the ARP. If a Democrat or someone else is better than the candidate bearing the ARP banner, the proud and famous candidate, then what about the far-right whose grasp on reality is, at best, dubious?
It remains true that ranked choice voting is a rare bird in American elections, but we can see that there’s a hesitancy, even wariness, to vote extremist when there’s a choice available. And Palin has her own set of unique political attributes – quitter and religious nutcase as well as an extremist, if you’re not in the mood for diplomatic language – to which many voters may have had a negative reaction.
But fighting ranked choice voting is moving up the list of dangerous issues for the current GOP.
