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:

From here on out, every election from Alaska to Florida, Republican candidates must place their unyielding Pro-Life credentials top and center of their platforms, speeches and advertising.

Take Alaska, perfect example, the people are Pro-Life but abortion remains legal in the state and Republicans in Juneau and even those is DC have done nothing to make abortion illegal.

This election should serve as an example that all Republicans must put ending abortion at front and center or their campaigns.

I read an article a few months before the election that highlighted the bad blood and viscous rhetoric that was going on between Palin and the other republican running.

When i realized they had this rank choice voting it became apparent this could and most likely was going to happen.

You just can’t have that level of animosity and think it wont effect people. We just witnessed the result.

Sure enough many republicans second choice/rank wasn’t the other republican and here we are….

That would backfire in an epic way. Not sure why the supreme court decided to do what they did in an election year. People vote for Republicans for fiscal and anti-woke reasons, not their pro-life stance. In fact, polls have shown that moderates do not like the way conservatives mix religion and politics. If you think God is on “our side”, you should read your bible more...because we are SUPPOSED to have a one world government before the rapture! The other side is supposed to win. Take the religion out of politics please!

While that does happen in some purple district, a lo of conservatives still do win both the primary and the general. I think Trump himself is good evidence of that. While he has his core of MAGA support, what enabled him to win in 2016 was that a lot of non-maga Republicans voted for him as well because they didn't want Hillary to be President.

But there is always a risk that if a candidate who is perceived by some voters as too far left or too far right wins their party's nomination, those voters will either for the other side, or just not vote all.

I don't like ranked-choice voting, but I don't believe it is unconstitutional. "One man, one vote" is a buzz phrase and appears nowhere in the Constitution. All the Constitution really requires is that each individual's voting rights be the same, and they are. Nor is there any Constitutional requirement that a system benefit committed single-candidate voters.

Certainly at the Presidential level, there isn't even a requirement that voters participate at all. It would be entirely constitutional for a state to decide that its presidential electors will be determined by the state legislature.

This is why ranked voting is another corrupt progressive idea. It’s not true representation in congress if most voters wanted to be represented by a Republican but end up with a Democrat.

Notice the same people who support ranked voting hate the electoral college which protects federalism. They are always looking for the ballot box advantage from ranked voting to the national popular vote compact to California’s reform eliminating partisan primaries and advancing the top two vote getters. You get the Democrat’s choice and an echo, not diverse viewpoints about the direction of the state.

It’s a losing issue! Young women who might have crossed the aisle to vote for us this year (college loans, woke teachers, fiscal issues...myriad of reasons why) are not going to now! Also when the Dems say that Republicans will “take away” this and that...people will believe them now because the SC took away legalized abortion. Lastly, states are legalizing it left and right...it will not put even a small dent in the number of abortions performed. There are many people that should not be reproducing anyways!

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