- Ranked choice ballots allow voters to express nuanced political opinions across party lines. Voters can back their favorite candidate without spoiling an election for their second-favorite.
- In Alaska’s first ranked choice elections in 2022, Democrat Mary Peltola won and held the state’s US House seat with cross-partisan support from Nick Begich voters. In a 2024 rematch, Begich (a Republican) won a majority with support across parties.
- Alaska’s top-four ranked choice system doesn’t favor one party over another—but it does encourage candidates to consider how their campaign might win broad support.
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In 2022, former Alaska State Representative Mary Peltola made history: she became the first woman to represent Alaska in the US House, the first Democrat to hold the seat in half a century, and the first Alaska Native ever to serve in the chamber. Importantly, she was also the first person to win a statewide ranked choice election in Alaska.
Some Republicans, including Peltola’s challengers Nick Begich and former Governor Sarah Palin, cried foul. The late US Representative Don Young, a Republican, had held the seat for half a century. Ranked choice voting, they fumed, must have been a ploy to elect Democrats.
Results from across the country indicate otherwise. Ranked choice voting doesn’t help members of one party or another; it elevates candidates with broad popular support among voters.
Sightline’s analysis of ballot data from the Alaska Division of Elections spells out a similar narrative: one of a Democrat with cross-partisan appeal in 2022, and of a Republican who captured a majority of hearts and minds during a conservative surge in 2024.
The August 2022 Special Election: Mary Peltola’s landmark win
A somber development gave Alaskans an early taste of the top-four primaries and ranked choice voting they adopted in 2020. Don Young, Alaska’s long-time US representative, passed away in March of 2022. His absence teed up a heated contest: in the first test of Alaska’s top-four primary, 48 hopefuls appeared on the June special primary ballot to serve the rest of Rep. Young’s term.
Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, independent Al Gross, and Democrat Mary Peltola secured the top four spots; but when Gross dropped out of the running, Alaska’s first ranked-choice contest came down to two Republicans and one Democrat.
Mary Peltola led the field with 40 percent of first-choice votes. Palin followed with 31 percent of the vote. Begich was a close third with 28 percent. No one candidate won a majority of votes, so election officials eliminated Begich, the lowest-performing—and allocated his votes to voters’ second-place rankings. Overall, Peltola had more support than Palin.
Immediately, some Republicans lashed out at ranked choice voting. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, for one, scoffed at the notion that an election in which 60 percent of voters picked Republican candidates first could produce a Democrat. Sarah Palin shared the same sentiment: “It’s effectively disenfranchised 60 percent of Alaska voters.”
Cotton and Palin ignored the core tenet of ranked choice voting: it gives voters a chance to express nuanced political opinions. And Alaskans did.
Begich voters were not necessarily hardcore Republicans
In short, Begich voters liked Begich; not all of them liked Palin.
Animated chart by Sightline Institute using official results from the Alaska Division of Elections.
Begich voters supporting Peltola wasn’t a fluke. The cast vote record, an anonymized data set showing how voters filled out their ballots, revealed that 27 percent of his supporters cast ballots for non-Republicans in the gubernatorial primary as well. Peltola, a low-profile and moderate Democrat, had a similar degree of cross-partisan appeal for some Alaskans who liked Begich.
But what about those 21 percent of Begich voters who had no second-place preference? If every one of those voters had picked Palin, she would have prevailed over Peltola, but if they had picked their second choices in the same proportions as the other Begich voters, Peltola still would have won.
More to the point, not ranking anyone second is a legitimate choice for voters. After all, Alaskans for Better Elections found that 85 percent of August voters thought ranked choice voting was “simple.” Begich-only voters could have ranked if they chose to do so, but they decided against expressing a preference between Peltola or Palin.
Begich and Palin turned against each other, and some voters followed suit
Palin’s withered support among Begich voters may have had roots in a venomous campaign. Begich called Palin a “quitter” and “intellectually deleterious.” Palin told her supporters that Begich was “full of bull.” Trading insults throughout the campaign didn’t exactly endear their bases to one another. Voters aren’t inclined to dole those rankings out to candidates they’ve come to hate.
In fairness, the Republicans were simply following an outdated campaign playbook. Attacking and undermining other candidates had long been a winning strategy in Alaska’s often divided pick-one, plurality winner elections prior to reform. But ranked choice voting encourages candidates to build bridges rather than burn them. If candidates can’t be a voter’s first choice, they can still appeal to be their second.
While Begich and Palin were snapping at each other, Peltola was snapping selfies with them. Her “Fish, Family, Freedom” slogan was upbeat and nonpartisan. She maintained a respectful tone when discussing her opponents, and they reciprocated—Palin even called her a “sweetheart.”
Perhaps if the Republicans had followed Peltola’s friendly lead and encouraged their supporters to rank one another, they could have drummed up enough support to keep the seat in Republican hands. Instead, they salted the earth.
by Al Vanderklipp and Jay Lee, Sightline Institute | Read more:
Image: Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via ZUMA Press Wire
[ed. Ranked choice voting works (even if Begich eventually slimed his way into Congress on Trump's coattails in 2024). Mary's running again, this time to oust another Trump yes-man, Dan Sullivan in the Senate. I don't support all of her positions, but at least they'rej well reasoned and not just rubber stamps for whatever Trump dictates. Please contribute to her campaign if you value independent thinking. See also: Five Ways Election Reform Has Revamped Alaska Politics (Sightline).]
