Sarah Palin Should Blame Lisa Murkowski for Her Special Election Loss
Last night, Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Republican firebrand and former governor Sarah Palin in Alaska’s special election for its vacant House seat. Palin should have won. But it was Alaska’s first time using ranked-choice voting in an election, and that spelled the Trump-backed candidate’s doom.
For those unfamiliar with ranked-choice voting, here’s a primer: if a candidate does not receive a majority — i.e., more than 50 percent — of first-place votes, ballots are retabulated, the lowest-vote getter is eliminated, and their votes go to voters’ second choice. This process continues until a candidate clears 50 percent of the vote.
In the first round of voting, Peltola won 40.2 percent of first choice preferences, followed by Palin’s 31.1 percent, and Republican Nick Begich III’s 28.5 percent. This means 59.6 percent of voters initially cast their ballot for Republican candidates.
After Begich was eliminated in the second round of tabulation and his votes reallocated, 50 percent of Begich voters ranked Palin as their second choice; with 29 percent crossing party lines to vote for Mary Peltola. 21 percent of his voters chose not to rank a second choice, a phenomenon otherwise known as ballot exhaustion. (Read more from “Sarah Palin Should Blame Lisa Murkowski for Her Special Election Loss” HERE)
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