Alaska to Vote Again This Fall on Ranked Choice Voting After Primary Chaos

Alaska's August primary produced a final candidate list that barely held together by the time voters headed to the polls this fall. At least five candidates who won spots in the general election for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House dropped out afterward, according to the Associated Press. Some voters are furious. Others just want the whole system gone.

Alaska runs a top-four open primary followed by a ranked-choice general election, adopted by voters in a 2020 ballot measure and first used four years ago. Voters narrowly rejected a repeal attempt two years ago. This November they'll vote on the system again.

The Governor's Race Got Scrambled

In the governor's primary, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins finished first and Tom Begich finished second. Begich then withdrew and endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins, according to the AP. Some Begich voters said they felt robbed of the chance to rank their own choices in November and that their votes ended up not mattering. Others said they trusted Begich's judgment.

The general election is now Kreiss-Tomkins against three Republicans: Bernadette Wilson, Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor.

Matt Schultz, a Democrat who suspended his own U.S. House bid before the primary, told the AP the system needs work. "We need to make things much more transparent and predictable and understandable by the general public so that we can truly have trust in our democracy again," Schultz said. He still plans to vote to keep ranked choice voting this fall, and points to the outsized role of money in campaigns as a bigger problem than the voting method itself.

What Supporters Say It's Done

Supporters credit the top-four/ranked-choice system with a moderating effect on Alaska's Legislature, which has been controlled by bipartisan coalitions in both chambers for the past two years, according to the AP. That's exactly what backers promised when they put the measure on the ballot in 2020: a system that forces candidates to build support beyond their partisan base instead of just winning a closed primary.

Whether five candidates dropping out after the primary undoes that benefit is the question Alaska voters have to answer this November.

The Senate Race Shows the Stakes

The U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola is where the ranked-choice math could decide control of a seat outright. An AARP Voter Survey conducted by Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research found Peltola leading Sullivan 46% to 41% in first-choice votes, with Peltola's lead widening to 53%-47% once ranked-choice allocations are applied. A separate Co/Efficient poll found the opposite: Sullivan ahead of Peltola 49% to 46%.

The AARP poll found Alaska Democrats carrying a net approval of -14 points, worse than Republicans' -7, but independents in that same poll favored Peltola by the widest margin of any matchup tested. The Co/Efficient poll showed Sullivan with a narrow favorability edge, 46% approve to 45% disapprove, versus Peltola's 41% approve to 47% disapprove.

Breitbart's coverage highlighted a specific complaint from the right: that a candidate who filed for the Senate race under the name Dan Sullivan, sharing the senator's name, told the New York Times he voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in the last three elections and has donated to Peltola and other Democrats. Breitbart characterized this as Democrats manipulating the primary with "chicanery." No investigation, charge, or ruling has established that the filing was coordinated or illegal, and Alaska's top-four primary allows any qualified candidate to file regardless of party. Whether a same-name filing was a deliberate spoiler tactic or a coincidence remains unresolved and unproven by any source reviewed here.

Breitbart also noted Peltola missed 40% of House votes in the summer of 2024 and later took a lobbying job alongside her former chief of staff after leaving Congress, details the AP's roundup of the ranked-choice ballot fight did not mention. Those are legitimate facts about her record that voters weighing the Senate race are entitled to know, separate from the ranked-choice debate itself.

What's Unresolved

Critics of ranked choice voting argue the system lets late withdrawals and strategic endorsements override the plain preferences voters expressed at the ballot box, exactly what angered Begich's supporters. Alaska's own election data doesn't yet show whether that anger will translate into votes to repeal the system this November, or whether the Legislature's recent bipartisan coalitions will be enough to convince voters the tradeoff is worth it. Alaskans decide both questions, the fate of the voting system and control of a competitive Senate seat, on the same ballot this fall.