Sarah Palin’s recent opinion piece was rich. She is blaming her loss in August’s special general election on ranked choice voting. The thing is, in 2020, Alaska voters didn’t approve just ranked choice voting, they also approved open primaries. While we are just getting started down this road, I believe that open primaries will have a bigger impact on Alaskan politics than RCV. If it weren’t for open primaries, it is highly likely that Palin wouldn’t even been on the ballot. I’m sure she doesn’t want to believe it, but the Alaska Republican Party doesn’t appear to like her.
But, here’s the thing: if ranked choice voting didn’t exist, Palin still lost. Plain and simple. A total of 75,799 people voted for Peltola and 58,973 voted for Palin. She lost. It’s telling that with RCV, 15,467 people who initially voted for Nick Begich, the other Republican, chose Peltola, a Democrat, as their second choice. And 11,243 of voters who initially backed Begich refused to vote for either Palin or Peltola.
I have no faith that Palin will do better for Alaska than Peltola. It’s pretty clear to me that Palin is all about Palin.
— Rick Girouard
Anchorage
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