Posted on 08/31/2022 5:23:31 PM PDT by CrazyCatChick
Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election to fill Alaska's House seat for the remainder of 2022, according to unofficial results released by the Alaska Division of Elections, thwarting former Gov. Sarah Palin's bid at a political comeback -- at least for a few months. Peltola emerged as the victor Wednesday when Alaska's Division of Elections tabulated ranked-choice ballots in the state's first use of the system.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
In any election you can blame the candidate. Or you can look at the real motivations of the voters, and the tactics of the campaigns.
Begich's voters don't seem to be conservatives, or even solid Republicans. So 11,222 of them bullet voted, which suggests they didn't want a Republican win, they only wanted a Begich win. The same with the 15,445 who voted for a Democrat as their second choice.
A lot of this looks like good tactics by Democrats and their allies to win in an RCV election.
Step 1: Put enough votes on one of the opponents to split the first round and prevent the top candidate on the other side from getting a majority in round 1.
Step 2: Get second choices so that your candidate wins in round 2.
Palin had a moment 15 years ago. She was on an impressive journey, and I very much supported her and was eager to see what she would accomplish.
In hindsight, she should have never left the governorship after just 18 months to join McCain. (Spit)
But its been 14 years. Her prime. And nothing. I followed her social media. BORING. She says nothing but punditspeak platitudes. No interesting ideas. No improvement in her speaking style. No special causes with a high profile. Do you think Trump just “forgot” to utilize her in any way?
Losing a primary in in a red state in a wave year?
Let her go.
Yes it does. And it is also important to have candidates that are not running the designated losers campaign.
Hopefully, Palin will see the writing on the wall and let Begich take on Peltola in November.
For a Republican to lose in Alaska with Biden leading the Democrats, is a humiliating performance.
Alaska is a right of center, very Republican state, but not really that conservative overall.
Murkwoski is left of center and you can get a more conservative Senator than her elected there...but a full throated conservative would likely not win there. Dan Sullivan is more in the mold of an Alaska Republican that can win and still be right of center in overall philosophy.
Well, duh.
The next question is, what are we going to do about this other than pouting and stomping our feet?
“If Palin had finished third, a much larger portion of her votes would have went to Begich.”
This is the way it always works. Conservatives have no place to go but to vote for an assistant democrat. But assistant democrat voters usually flop to the real democrats when push comes to shove.
Of course, the assistant democrats whine hugely if conservatives sit out the race.
So the R party is only a party that gives mutual support to it’s various wings if an acceptable assistant democrat is nominated.
I refer to them as the ‘Bill Kristol Wing of Free Republic’...
The way the GOP wins in the Fall is for Palin and Begich to tell their voters to rank a Republican as their 2nd choice. In that way the GOP wins the seat.
It is simple as that isn’t it?
If she (or we) win, why it’s a fair system
But if she (or we) lose, then suddenly the system is “rigged”.
That’s the 1950s and 1960s values dad taught me about
regarding sports and life in general.
Thank you for your objective analysis!
Sometimes you have to look at a result honestly and this is one of those times.
Palin needs to sue over this clearly unconstitutional ranked choice voting BS
Begich isn’t an “assistant Democrat.” He has a mainstream conservative voting record. These idiotic labels that the Grifter Pundit and other members of the moron class put on people without bothering to check voting records is asinine.
On the issues, Palin and Begich are very, very similar. Take a look a Begich’s voting record and both of their issue positions. They are virtually identical.
Palin quit in the middle of her term, a lot of voters never forgave her for that. Add in the absolute celebrity train-wreck that she’s been involved with during the last 10 years, and it isn’t any surprise that this is the result.
If that is the case, I blame Begich for the loss of the seat. In the name of party unity, he should have encouraged his supporters to put Palin as the 2nd choice. Without knowing Palin’s second choice votes, I would hope the vast majority put Begich second.
Given that more than 60% of the voters supported GOP candidates, why should it be so difficult for Palin and Begich to come to some sort of agreement and announce it publicly?
Ranked voting should be dropped. Murkowski was behind it.
There is going to be more of this, more candidates that Trump endorses are going down to defeat and there is a lot of crackpot crap out there that won in the GOP primaries that are gonna get pummeled in the general when the Democrats, independents and conservative/moderate Republicans (non MAGA) (about 70% of the vote in most places) join and weigh in.
Take it to the bank
Is this really “winning”!!!!???
We are a dumb party. We seem to have two republicans in many elections. And we have stupid runoffs in Georgia Alaska and other red states. We literally hurt ourselves. Very frustrating.
Alaska is now showing off Democrat voter fraud. Palin Won in a landslide. No paper ballots to count? LoL
And mail in ballots without proof of ID and signatures!! Smell the coffee darling but they perfected the cheating because the Republicans are not willing to fight the good fight against fraud! That’s what I’m hearing from people from Alaskans on other sites. They had a problem with the mailing ballots all favoring the Democrats! Something stinks to high heaven! We are in a middle of a war we need to learn how to cheat too!
President Trump supported Palin and so I follow Trump’s lead on this hopefully you and Begich will come along.
You’re the guy who told all Trump was being played by North Korea and they were gong to nuke us.
Gak~
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