Sen. Lisa Murkowski wins re-election in Alaska, fending off Trump-backed challenge after a ranked-choice runoff

NBC ^

[FarCenter]

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won re-election in Alaska, dealing former President Donald Trump another loss in what has largely been a miserable midterm cycle for his hand-picked candidates in competitive Senate races.

Murkowski, one of only seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, survived a challenge from Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, a former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, in the state’s first Senate election to be decided by ranked-choice voting.

Rather than limiting voters to one choice, the format allows for candidates to be ranked in order of preference. Neither Murkowski nor Tshibaka, the top two-vote getters in the first round of the Nov. 8 general election, had a majority after first choices were tabulated, triggering runoff rounds Wednesday in which ballots listing eliminated candidates were reallocated to the voter’s next choices.

Murkowski, Tshibaka, Democrat Patricia Chesbro and Republican Buzz Kelley all advanced from a nonpartisan August primary. Kelley later dropped out and endorsed Tshibaka, but he remained on the ballot. Wednesday’s runoff began with the second-choice votes from those who preferred the last-place Kelley being dispersed among the remaining three candidates. Chesbro was eliminated next, and the second-choice votes from her ballots helped put Murkowski over the threshold.

[AnthonySoprano]

[clintonh8r]

Ranked choice. Nice going Alaska.

[Gay State Conservative]

Rank choice voting = voter fraud

[Henchster]

RCV =

RIGGED CHOICE VOTING.

[jz638]

Let’s thank Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski for demonstrating what ranked choice voting really means. If Kelly Tshbika won outright, Republicans would have thought they could outmaneuver it on principle.embrace this corruption.

[nascarnation]

Can I get a ride in your Maserati, Joe?

[Jane Long]

More like RANK choice.

Thanks, Alaska.

[AnthonySoprano]

[AnthonySoprano]

.
They Claim they’re public servants and it’s a sacrifice - but notice how they all hold on to those jobs until they’re 90.

And every one has a fortune.

.

[jonrick46]

If not rigged elections, blame the Alaskans.

[AnthonySoprano]

[Tupelo]

OK, Gope wins. America first loses.
In 2020 and 2022, I only voted for MAGA candidates and what did we get? Another stolen election, with Republicans working (and cheating)as hard as Democrats to defeat MAGA candidates.

One definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, somewhere down the line. Come 2024, I will either not vote for any Democrat nor Republican or simply stay home.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

[willk]

“Who’s behind that ANI outfit out of Texas who spent all the dough to push ranked choice in Alaska?”

I wonder if they are the same ones behind the effort in Nevada? I was at the Reno DMV when I was accosted by 2 young black women social justice warriors in the parking lot trying to get me to sign an initiative to get it on the ballot. I told them to fu*k off (but in a more diplomatic
way). Unfortunately,it looks they were successful.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Thieving whore. She’s a great Marxist RAT. She knows how to do electoons.

[FlingWingFlyer]

What a skank looks like.

[Dan in Wichita]

RCV is nothing but a scam. It allows losers to vote twice.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Murkowski needs to go on a Hale Boggs airplane tour.

[gathersnomoss]

Pieces of disgusting sh IT!!!!!
America deserves the best.

[JennysCool]

Disappointing for sure, but I have posted before that these incumbent Senators have a huge advantage going in not only for their election warchests, but because they have for years, sometimes decades, corralled funding for myriad projects large and small in their states, cities and towns. A whole lot of voters are swayed forever by that new swimming pool in their town that "Lisa got for us," or the new school, or courthouse, or whatever local project Lisa managed to insert into some completely unrelated bill along the way. We don't live in their districts or states, so we know very little about how successful they have been in passing out the goodies.

We spend a lot of time around here posting things like "How could they possibly have re-elected that idiot?" It's good to remember that "bringing home the bacon" for the home folks has been a staple in politics forever, and that gives longtime Senators a massive advantage right out of the gate.