Is that the setup like California where they often wind up with two Democrats in the Nov election?
“Is that the setup like California where they often wind up with two Democrats in the Nov election?”
No, only Washington and Louisiana aside from California have that type of system, intended to help Democrats but it actually works the other way around in Louisiana (Washington and California are lost causes).
Ranked (”Rigged”) Choice Voting in Alaska first of all means that 4 candidates advance to the general election from the all-party primary in August. Obviously Murkowski will be 1 of those 4.
In November, voters “rank” the 4 candidates. If no candidate gets 50% of the vote — 50% of voter’s “first choice”s — then the 4th place candidate is eliminated and whoever those voters picked as their #2 choice is counted. If STILL no candidate breaks 50% then the 3rd place candidate is eliminated and THEIR second-choice votes are allocated among the 2 survivors.
Yes it’s confusing, as it is meant to be.
The bottom line is that whoever the 3rd and 4th place candidates are in this race — some Democrat and some even more trivial candidate — it is highly likely that Murkowski will be their #2 choice because she is FAR better known (though I fail to see why that should be a positive) and because her “moderate” views are far more in line with Democrats/Indies/RINO squishes than Kelly’s supposedly “hard-line” conservatism.
It will be an upset of mammoth proportions if a conservative challenger can win under this system, even in a so-called Republican state like Alaska. Alaska may be “Republican”, but the majority of voters are by no means conservative.
The top two vote-getters will be Republicans. They should allow only one per party.