A congratulatory bouquet to the victors!
The first half of the ruin of extremists in the United States has now been completed by Rep Mary Peltola (D-AK) and Senator Murkowski (Rmoderate-AK), as each is projected by CNN and Ballotpedia to have won their reelection contests.
In Rep Peltola’s case, she has defeated former Governor and VP candidate Sarah “quitter” Palin (Rextremist-AK) and Nicholas Begich (R-AK) in the ranked choice voting (RCV) contest, triumphing in the third round. Rep Peltola had assumed the late Rep Don Young’s (R-AK) seat on winning the special election for the seat just a few months ago. Keeping in mind that CNN still shows votes to be counted, how does Peltola’s victory compare to her previous victory?
The margin is significantly larger.
Peltola’s special election margin over Palin was 3 points.
CNN and Ballotpedia has her margin in the general election currently at nearly 10 points.
This suggests that either moderate voters skipped the special election, which is certainly possible, or the regular Republican voters have decided that Peltola is not a member of the Devil’s Party, or at least that the Devil’s Party isn’t so bad as a fully configured religious extremist.
It’s a trap!
(Apply metaphor as needed.)
And that would be a real problem for an Alaska Republican Party (ARP) that put forth said extremist as its most popular candidate. It suggests that the extremists currently in control of the Party in Alaska don’t know how to make their positions palatable, don’t understand the voters’ preferences, and that voters don’t care for their loyalty to the former President, a loyalty evident in ARP’s censure of a sitting Senator for voting for conviction of the then-President, and his endorsement of Palin in return. Have Alaska voters decided that the Trump brand is the brand of losers who don’t know how to govern, and the ARP is controlled by out of touch advocates of positions incompatible with the future? If Trump wins the nomination for the 2024 Presidential Election, is it possible that Alaska will go Democratic? I think so, although that depends on a number of factors. Stay tuned for a couple of years.
Moving on to the victory of moderate Senator Murkowski (R) over Trump-endorsee Kelly Tshibaka (R), for a race that was considered to be a nail biter by conservative news outlets who, in obeisance to the former President, were rooting for Tshibaka, Murkowski won by a comfortable 7+ points. Importantly, Murkowski not only was running without endorsement from the ARP, but had actually been censured by the ARP for voting to convict the former President in his second trial for the January 6th Insurrection, as well as voting to confirm U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as Department of Interior secretary. As Haaland is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, this censure may have served to alienate many indigenous Alaskan voters from Tshibaka, although I only speculate. Murkowski is well known for her devotion to indigenous Alaskan interests, so it may not have mattered.
Even more interestingly, the ARP also voted to censure Senate GOP leader Senator McConnell (R-KY) for his financial support of Murkowski. This is not important in the context of the election, except to signify the fury of the extremists at the proper functioning of a democracy, but McConnell’s investment on Murkowski’s behalf had multiple purposes: Frustrate Trump, who hates McConnell and had endorsed Tshibaka; preserve an ally for McConnell; and, most importantly, conserve a U.S. Senate seat for the Republican Party. In previous posts I’ve suggested Murkowski might consider starting a new political party of a moderate nature, or could go independent; McConnell’s investment should restrain such impulses on her part, which I think is a sad result, but very smart investment by McConnell.
These results should dismay the extremists who thought the “red wave,” which disappeared into the vortex of disaffected voters, would carry them into dominance. Other extremist news includes the 13 point defeat of former two-term governor of Maine Paul LePage (R), who characterized himself as, paraphrasing, “Trump before there was a Trump.” (I preferred Amanda Chase’s self-description of “Trump in heels,” which has a lovely, terrible visual.) This rejection of LePage’s radical politics is perhaps not as decisive as desired, but if the Maine Republican Party wants to return to governance, they’ll be well-advised to dump LePage and those who advance his causes.
While national Republicans continue to make radical noises, those states in which RCV is used should see moderates winning elections – and Republicans hating RCV. It’s the bane of extremists who find toxic team politics and first past the post voting to be far more favorable.
But I see RCV as a natural result of toxic team politics and the consequent election of incompetent, grandstanding extremists. Look for it to become ,ore popular with moderates of all stripes.
