Why the left shouldn't be crowing so loudly about that Sarah Palin defeat: Leftists may not be cheering in November

Well, the left has got one. On Twitter and beyond, you've never heard such crowing.

According to Politico:

Democrat Mary Peltola has defeated Republican Sarah Palin in the special election for Alaska's vacant House seat, a big upset over the former governor in the state's first election under ranked-choice voting.
Peltola, a former state legislator who will become Alaska's first indigenous member of Congress, defeated a special election field that included Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich III. The Democrat finished first in the initial tally and then won enough second-choice votes from Begich's supporters to see off Palin, who had former President Donald Trump's endorsement and previously won a statewide campaign in 2006.

That 60% of the state could vote for a Republican, yet the seat should nevertheless go to a Democrat, is bitter news indeed for the Republicans. Ranked-choice voting, which in Alaska was introduced in this election, where the voters whose candidate is eliminated get to vote a second time, through their second choices, pretty well left enough holes for the Democrats to walk away with the seat.

It's doubly sad because Sarah Palin had been the frontrunner and was attempting to make a political comeback. Palin had been unjustly hounded from office as governor in 2009, following her stint as John McCain's running mate in 2008, attracting grotesque amounts of demonizing attention from the left, as well as from sleazy McCain staffers leaking from inside the campaign. Her detractors painted Palin as a hick and spread lies about her as corrupt, ignorant, and phony. It was a demonization that could only be compared to what they later did to Donald Trump, which is to say, Palin was the proto-Trump. Had she won, it would have been poetic justice.

Instead, we got this:

Palin gets another swing at Peltola and her leftist agenda in November, and if the greenie-agenda pain is strong enough, and the Bidenflation high enough, there should be flip-back, same as happened in Massachusetts. Alaska is a pretty libertarian state in orientation, and there are a lot of libertarians who are liberal on abortion, which is what was said to have driven the Democrats. But inflation in general tops that as an issue for voters according to most polls, particularly with the Democrats’ extended incompetence on the matter.

Also, this strange rigged election is hardly about to be repeated in the rest of the country, since only a few places now have ranked-choice voting. It’s likely Democrats are going to go big on this form of rigging, given the successes they’ve had with it, but their wish list for it not going to be in place by November 2022. That means the red-wave trend is very likely still in place.

It is ranked-choice voting, which means that voters get to select both a first and second choice. In Alaska, the way it works is that you take the candidates who come in first and second, and add to their vote totals all the second place votes cast by the people who voted for the other candidates.

What essentially happened here is that the people who voted for Belich, the other Republican candidate, did not vote for Palin as their second choice in sufficient numbers. Some voted for the Democrat, and some left their second choice blank.

What that essentially means is that while a majority of voters in the state did vote for "a" Republican, Palin apparently is disliked enough by enough Republicans that she would not have won a two-person race between her and the Democrat.

That's a bit of a simplification, but I think it correctly describes how the result should be interpreted.

Actually, that is only your opinion.

We are seeing plenty of RINO-versus-MAGA elections happening across the country. RCV shows us, in Alaska, that far too many Republicans are barely that. These “Republicans” would rather see a Democrat win than someone who supports Trump. This is not unique to Alaska.

I think it also shows the stupidity of trying to pretend that you still have parties in politics, while you disable them in the electoral process. RCV and open primaries should be illegal.

Evidence has been growing for some time that her day has come and gone!

Alaskan friends tell me:

” A lot of her past Alaskan supporters resent her abandoning the governorship. Notwithstanding the fact that she had to do it because of her financial situation. Flirting with moving to Arizona didn’t help either.”

In politics perceptions almost always override facts.

“What that essentially means is that while a majority of voters in the state did vote for “a” Republican, Palin apparently is disliked enough by enough Republicans that she would not have won a two-person race between her and the Democrat.”

This is what it’s designed to do. The proponents are aware there is a perennial dispute between MAGA R’s and Open Borders/Pro China/Pro war R’s.

This works out really well for the D’s because the Open Borders assistant democrats rarely will support a conservative let alone a MAGA candidate as their second choice.

On the other hand, the Maga folks usually hold their nose and vote for the very smelly assisitant democrat.

Conservatives have been living with this for decades. If R’s dare to nominate a candidate is not pro-open-borders and pro-FBI abuses, and all wars all the time, then the assistant democrats bail and support the D. And should the R be elected anyway, they will enthusiastically lie, cheat, and steal, to force them out of office..

Republicans are not really a party.

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