#nick begich

[dadsinsuits]

Nick Begich III

[nodynasty4us]

Alaska’s Independents Have Something to Say to the Rest of the Country

Liberated by ranked choice voting, they seem poised to swing dramatically toward Democrats. Will independent voters in the Lower 48 follow?

[unwelcome-ozian]

[nodynasty4us]

The Absurd Fraud at a Republican Chili Cook-Off in Alaska Has a Lesson About Sarah Palin, Trump, and 2022

I saw firsthand why the party is in trouble.

[swaggylillia]

somebody should write dan sullivan and nick begich yaoi

[emeraldspiral]

Nick Begich III is the RFK Jr. of the Begich family.

[gwydionmisha]

Peltola faces Palin, Begich, Bye in Alaska House debate

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in a televised debate Wednesday called partisanship a threat to the country as the Democrat sought to make the case for reelection to the seat she's held since September against challengers including Republican Sarah Palin.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

After Dem Wins Alaska Seat, Right Wingers Think Ranked-Choice Voting Is A Scam

After Republican voters seemingly delivered a Democrat Alaska’s sole congressional seat Wednesday...

Matt Shuham at TPM:

After Republican voters seemingly delivered a Democrat Alaska’s sole congressional seat Wednesday night, right-wing commentators declared ranked-choice voting a terrible, no good, very bad idea.

“Ranked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who incidentally has never participated in a close election in his political career.

“I hope Alaska kills off the GOP desire for ranked choice voting in other states just as Trump winning in 2016 killed off their desire for the electoral college to conform to the popular vote,” commented talk radio host Erick Erickson.

Brigitte Gabriel, an Islamophobic activist who once said a practicing Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America,” lamented, “Ranked choice voting is an attack on democracy.”

“At Sarah Palin’s campaign headquarters there was confusion and then anger when the results were announced,” reported Sean Maguire of the Anchorage Daily News. “She railed against ranked choice voting, called on Nick Begich to drop out and said the fight is just getting started.”

A few days before the Alaska results were in, Arizona Republican Tyler Bowyer argued ranked-choice voting and independent redistricting commissions – two reforms meant to decrease extreme partisanship and political party control – would lead to Democratic election landslides.

But, contrary to the latest GOP talking points, a recent poll found that the vast majority of Alaskans said filling out a ranked-choice ballot was simple.

Also, the voting method doesn’t necessarily favor one party or another, though it does tend to favor candidates who have some crossover appeal for voters: New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) both won the party nominations for their current jobs in ranked-choice elections.

[...]

Dem Maneuvered Around Republican Infighting For A Win

Ranked-choice voting, which Alaska voters made state law with a ballot initiative in 2020, is simple: If no single candidate wins an outright majority at first, then the candidate who garnered the fewest votes is eliminated, and votes for that candidate are redistributed to whichever candidate those voters ranked as their second choice – if they chose to rank anyone at all. The votes are then re-tabulated, and the process repeats, with the least-successful candidate being eliminated until someone wins a majority.

What happened in Alaska shows ranked-choice voting in action: When the race came down to three candidates running to serve the remainder of Rep. Don Young’s (R) term, Mary Peltola (D) led with 40.2% of the vote. Sarah Palin (R) received 31.3% of the vote, and Nick Begich (R) received 28.5% of the vote.

So, as the lowest vote-getter, Begich was eliminated. Votes cast for him were redistributed to his voters’ second choices. And here’s the dynamic that delivered the race for the Democrat: Among Begich’s first-choice voters, 50.3% of second-choice votes went to Palin, his fellow Republican, but a whopping 28.7% went to Democrat Peltola – bipartisan voters. What’s more, fully 21% of Begich’s voters had ranked neither Palin nor Peltola below him. Peltola ultimately beat Palin by a three-point margin, 51.5% to 48.5%.

Their whining and calling Alaska’s ranked choice voting system a “scam” is more sour GOP grapes that their candidate didn’t win in the special election to replace the late Rep. Don Young (R).