Ranked choice voting

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares42 Views

    Mamdani and Lander Will Cross-Endorse Each Other in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

    by

    Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, the two leading progressive candidates in the race, hope their partnership will help them leverage the ranked-choice voting system to defeat Andrew M. Cuomo.Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, the leading progressive candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, will cross-endorse each other on Friday, creating a late-stage partnership designed to help one of them surpass former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in ranked-choice balloting.The candidates, who are second and third in the polls behind Mr. Cuomo, will encourage their supporters to rank them in the top two spots on their ballots. The city’s ranked-choice voting system allows primary voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference.If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of New Yorkers’ first-choice votes, ranked-choice tabulations will begin. When voters’ top choices are eliminated during that process, their support will get transferred to candidates who are lower on their ballots.The partnership, which is being announced one day before early voting begins, would effectively turn Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman, and Mr. Lander, the city comptroller, into something of a joint entry. They hope that one of them will eventually accumulate many of the other’s votes as a result.Mr. Mamdani, who has steadily risen in the polls and is running second behind Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement that at Thursday night’s debate, he and Mr. Lander had exposed Mr. Cuomo as “a relic of the broken politics of the past.”“I am proud to rank our principled and progressive comptroller No. 2 on my ballot because we are both fighting for a city every New Yorker can afford,” Mr. Mamdani said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Choose Wisely, Choose Often: Ranked-Choice Voting Returns to New York

      by

      The new voting system was used in the mayor’s race in 2021. It is back this month for the primary races for the City Council.The last time New Yorkers went to the polls, they had to contemplate a governor’s race and a slew of congressional races in the critical 2022 midterm elections.But there was one variable that they did not have to deal with: ranked-choice voting, which had been used the previous year in the mayoral election.For the City Council races on the ballot this year, ranked-choice voting returns for the June 27 primaries, with early voting beginning Saturday, June 17.Here’s what you need to know about the voting system:Ranked-choice voting was used in the 2021 primaries in New York City.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesHow does ranked-choice voting work?The voting system, overwhelmingly approved by the city’s voters in 2019, is used in primary and special elections for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and the City Council.Under ranked-choice voting, voters can list up to five candidates on their ballots in order of preference.If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round, they win.If no candidate does, the winner is decided by a process of elimination: The lowest-polling candidate is removed from each round, and their votes are reallocated to whichever candidate those voters ranked next until only two candidates are left. The candidate with the most votes wins.That might sound complicated. But all you need to know as a voter is this: Rank your favorite candidate first and then pick as many as four other choices, in order of preference.How Does Ranked-Choice Voting Work in New York?New Yorkers first used the new voting system in the mayor’s race in 2021. Confused? We can help.Did the voting system help Eric Adams become mayor?Maybe.Mr. Adams had expressed doubts about ranked-choice voting, but it might have helped him win — even if the process was messy.Initially, early unofficial results showed Mr. Adams with a narrow lead. But then election officials announced they had miscounted the ballots. A new tabulation still found that Mr. Adams had collected the most first-round votes, but he was not declared the winner until weeks later, when voters’ secondary choices were tabulated.Under the old system, Mr. Adams would have faced a runoff because he did not receive at least 40 percent of votes. In a runoff, he would have faced his closest first-round rival in the 2021 Democratic primary: Maya Wiley, a lawyer and MSNBC contributor. Voters would have faced a clear choice between two candidates, and it is not clear who might have won.But after voters’ ranked choices were considered, Ms. Wiley was eliminated, and in the last round, only Mr. Adams and Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, remained.Mr. Adams won the primary by a slim margin: only 7,197 votes. The ranked-choice system also aided Ms. Garcia; she was in third place after the initial count of first-place votes, but moved up to second as other candidates were eliminated, and their supporters’ votes were reallocated.Will ranked-choice be a factor in the Council primaries?Every member of the 51-member City Council is running to keep their seat, including candidates who won two years ago under unusual rules that were part of the City Charter.Less than half of races are being contested, and of those, 13 races feature more than two candidates — making ranked-choice voting necessary.The most interesting of those races is in Harlem, where the current council member, Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist, recently bowed out of the race.Are there benefits to ranked-choice voting?Proponents say the system enables people to more fully express their preferences and to have a greater chance of not wasting their vote on a less popular candidate. Voters can leave a candidate they really don’t like off their ballot and make sure their vote helps one of their opponents.There is also evidence that ranked-choice voting encourages more candidates to run, especially women and people of color, and that it discourages negative campaigning, since candidates are no longer competing for a person’s only vote.Candidates sometimes cross endorse each other to boost like-minded allies. Some political experts believe that if Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley had cross-endorsed each other in the primary, one of them would have become New York City’s first female mayor.Ranked-choice voting is used in Maine and Alaska, and in dozens of cities including San Francisco and Minneapolis. Opponents believe that it confuses many voters, and may discourage some to vote.Will cross-endorsements be a factor this year?Yes.Just days before early voting started, two Democratic candidates in the competitive City Council race in Harlem endorsed each other: Yusef Salaam, an activist who was wrongly imprisoned in the Central Park rape case, and Al Taylor, a state assemblyman.The move appeared aimed at stopping Inez E. Dickens, a Democratic state assemblywoman who formerly held the Council seat. More

    • 63 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Here’s How Ranked-Choice Voting Works

      by

      Ranked-choice voting, when voters list candidates in order of preference instead of casting a single ballot, has the potential this election season to continue disrupting the influence of the dual-party system in the United States.Commonly used by cities — including New York City, for its 2021 Democratic primary for mayor — ranked-choice voting is gaining popularity around the United States as a statewide option. This year, Nevada is deciding at the polls whether to join Maine and Alaska, which adopted ranked-choice in 2021, in using it to conduct future elections.The benefits of ranked-choice, which is sometimes called instant-runoff voting because people vote only once, are plentiful, proponents say.By giving voters more selections, ranked-choice aims to diminish the likelihood of voting along party lines, reducing polarization. If voters recognize that their vote would go toward their next choice if their preferred candidate is eliminated, the system ultimately produces a winner who satisfies more of the electorate. And because it removes the binary choice of voting for only one candidate, ranked-choice incentivizes candidates to build broader backing so they could appeal to their rivals’ supporters.Critics, meantime, point to ranked-choice’s relative unfamiliarity, with experts suggesting that overhauling a voting system can lead to negative consequences like lower turnout, voter confusion or a spike in invalidated ballots.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Final Landscape: As candidates make their closing arguments, Democrats are bracing for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country as Republicans predict a red wave.The Battle for Congress: With so many races on edge, a range of outcomes is still possible. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, breaks down four possible scenarios.Voting Worries: Even as voting goes smoothly, fear and suspicion hang over the process, exposing the toll former President Donald J. Trump’s falsehoods have taken on American democracy.Although the mechanics of ranked-choice are nominally the same, states have employed it in different ways.For example, Alaska in August unveiled a new electoral system approved in a 2020 ballot initiative, which opened primaries to all voters, regardless of their affiliation. Under those rules, voters could choose one candidate, and the four who drew the most votes moved on to compete in a runoff of sorts in the general election, in which voters rank their choices. The preferences are counted until someone secures a majority.In the initial stage of that experiment, ranked-choice helped Mary Peltola, a Democrat, defeat former Gov. Sarah Palin, her Republican opponent, in a special House election simply because voters had options: Even though more voters at first picked a Republican candidate, many Republican voters, when given a second choice, preferred a Democrat — Ms. Peltola — over Ms. Palin.Ms. Peltola, who became the first Alaska Native in Congress, is seated only until the term of Representative Don Young — who died unexpectedly in March — ends in January. She will vie with Ms. Palin; another Republican challenger, Nick Begich III; and Chris Bye, a libertarian in a ranked-choice election Tuesday for a full term.Alaska will also rank candidates for Senate, governor and the state legislature.In Nevada, voters will determine whether to adopt an electoral system similar to Alaska’s..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How we call winners on election night. We rely on The Associated Press, which employs a team of analysts, researchers and race callers who have a deep understanding of the states where they declare winners. In some tightly contested races, we independently evaluate A.P. race calls before declaring a winner.Here’s more about how it works.Under a proposed constitutional amendment, all registered voters will be permitted to participate in primaries for statewide and federal offices — though not for president — with the top five candidates advancing to the general election. The law currently requires voters to be registered as Democrats or Republicans in order to participate in their parties’ primaries.During the general election, voters would then list candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority, the last-place finisher would then be eliminated and his or her supporters’ votes would be reallocated to their second choices until one candidate has at least 50 percent of the votes.If approved on Tuesday, the measure would be placed on the ballot again in 2024 for voters to decide. The earliest that the changes could take effect would be in 2025. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Murkowski Says She Will Rank Peltola First on Her Ballot in Alaska

      by

      ANCHORAGE — Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a centrist Republican facing a tough re-election campaign, plans on ranking Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat, first on her ballot this November, crossing party lines to back the incumbent in her race to serve a full term in the House.Sitting in a quiet backstage corner behind exhibitions and vendors at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention this weekend, Ms. Murkowski confirmed to The New York Times on Saturday her support for Ms. Peltola, who earlier this year overcame a chaotic field of four dozen candidates to finish the remainder of Representative Don Young’s term after he died in March.Ms. Murkowski declined to say whether or how she would rank Ms. Peltola’s challengers: Sarah Palin, the former Republican governor and vice-presidential candidate, or Nicholas Begich III, a conservative member of an Alaskan liberal dynasty, both registered Republican candidates, or Chris Bye, a libertarian. Under Alaska’s new ranked-choice system, voters can rank their preferred candidates, which are counted until at least one candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote.Ms. Murkowski brushed off the significance of her comment, describing it as “Lisa being honest” and adding that she was primarily focused on her own race, where she is fending off Kelly Tshibaka, a right-wing challenger endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump and the state’s Republican Party. Ms. Murkowski has also retained broad support from Alaska Native voters in the state, and they proved crucial to her write-in campaign in 2010. (Ms. Peltola told The Washington Post she also planned on voting for Ms. Murkowski, and they posed together for a photo at the convention.)“Alaskans are going to go through the same process that I am, which is evaluating people, looking at their values and whether they represent them, and they will make that determination going forward,” Ms. Murkowski said.But the comment underscored the broad coalition Ms. Peltola is assembling in her bid to remain the sole representative for the state’s 734,000 people, after being sworn in last month as the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress. At the convention, Ms. Peltola was feted with raucous cheers and emotional prayer songs and tributes, as attendees rang cowbells and waved cutouts of her face at the very mention of her name.“We are in Mary’s house, and I know this,” Ms. Palin proclaimed at a candidate forum at the convention. “Doggone it, I never have anything, like, to gripe about — I just wish she’d convert on over to the other party.”Ms. Palin, while quick to lavish Ms. Peltola, her longtime friend, with praise, made no mention of Mr. Begich, who also appeared and who siphoned away some conservative voters in the primary. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Ballot Measures in Swing States Could Have Sizable Impact on 2024 Voting

      by

      While the midterm elections in November will decide control of Congress and some governors’ offices, there are other far-reaching issues at stake. Among them: the fate of voter ID rules, early voting expansion and ranked-choice voting.Ballot measures on these issues will appear in several battleground states, where most of the attention has been on marquee races, with a blizzard of campaign ads dominating the airwaves.But the outcome of those measures could weigh significantly on the 2024 presidential election, as Republicans and Democrats haggle over the guardrails of voting.Here is a roundup of ballot measures facing voters across the United States:ArizonaUnder a ballot measure embraced by Republicans, voters would be required to present photo identification when casting ballots in person. If it passes, the state would no longer accept two nonphoto forms of identification — such as a motor vehicle registration and a utility bill — in place of a government-issued ID card or a passport.The measure, which has been criticized by Democrats and voting rights advocates, would also create new requirements for voting by mail. Voters would be required to write their birth date and either a state-issued identification number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on an early ballot affidavit.MichiganA proposed constitutional amendment would create a permanent nine-day period of early in-person voting at polling sites, as well as an expansion of existing options for voters to visit clerks’ offices and other local election offices to cast early ballots.The measure, which was backed by a voting rights coalition and survived a wording-related challenge, with the Michigan Supreme Court weighing in, would also allow voters who are unable to present ID at the polls to sign an affidavit attesting to their identity.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.Michigan would also be required to pay for drop boxes and return postage for absentee ballots, in addition to mail expenses associated with applications.To prevent partisan groups from subverting election results, as supporters of former President Donald J. Trump tried to do in 2020 in Michigan when they put forward a slate of fake electors, canvassing boards in the state would be required to certify results based only on the official record of votes cast.NevadaNevada voters will decide whether to adopt ranked-choice voting for the general election and to overhaul the state’s primary system.Under a proposed constitutional amendment, primaries for statewide and federal offices, but not for president, would be open to all voters, with the top five vote-getters advancing to the general election. The law currently stipulates that voters must be registered as Democrats or Republicans in order to participate in their parties’ primariesIf approved in November, the measure would be placed on the ballot again in 2024 for voters to decide. The earliest that the changes could take effect would be in 2025.In a ranked-choice system during the general election, voters list candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority, officials would eliminate the last-place finisher and reallocate his or her supporters’ votes to their second choices until one candidate has at least 50 percent of the votes.Alaska recently adopted ranked-choice voting, and some Republicans blamed that system for the defeat of Sarah Palin, a former governor and the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, in a special House election in August.New York, Maine and Utah also have some form of ranked-choice voting, as do dozens of American cities.OhioCities and towns in Ohio would be barred from allowing non-U.S. citizens to vote in state and local elections under a constitutional amendment that seeks to rein in the home rule authority of municipalities.Opponents contend that federal law already bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections. But the measure’s supporters say that an explicit prohibition is needed at the state level, despite instances of voter fraud proving to be rare.The issue arose after voters in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a small village east of Dayton, voted in 2019 to allow noncitizens to vote for local offices. None have registered since then, though, according to The Columbus Dispatch.NebraskaEmulating other red states, Nebraska could require voters to present photo ID at the polls under a constitutional amendment supported by Gov. Pete Ricketts, a term-limited Republican who is leaving office in January. Critics say the rule change would disenfranchise voters.ConnecticutConnecticut is one of a handful of states that do not offer early in-person voting, but a proposed constitutional amendment could change that.The measure directs the Legislature to create a mechanism for early voting, which would be separate from accepting absentee ballots before Election Day. The timing and details would be decided by lawmakers, who could enact the changes by the 2024 election. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      With Peltola’s Defeat of Palin, Alaska’s Ranked-Choice Voting Has a Moment

      by

      Mary Peltola, whose victory in a special election on Wednesday makes her the first Democrat in nearly half a century to represent Alaska in the House, won the contest for the remainder of Representative Don Young’s term with an upbeat campaign that appealed to Alaskan interests and the electorate’s independent streak.But Alaska’s new voting system also played a big role in Ms. Peltola’s three-percentage-point victory over former Gov. Sarah Palin, her Republican opponent.Ms. Peltola, who will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress and the first woman to hold the House seat, won at least in part because voters had more choices. While more voters initially picked a Republican candidate, that didn’t matter. Given a second choice, many Republican voters opted for a Democrat — Ms. Peltola — over Ms. Palin.Speaking to reporters on Wednesday night, Ms. Palin criticized the new voting system as “weird.” Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas called the system a “scam to rig elections” against Republicans.But proponents of systems like Alaska’s say this is how it is supposed to work. When voters have more choices, they’re less likely to vote along strict party lines, reducing polarization and giving independent-minded or more centrist candidates a better shot.The changes to how Alaskans choose their representatives in state and federal elections were decided on in 2020, when allies of Lisa Murkowski — the state’s senior senator, who ran in 2010 as a write-in candidate after losing that year’s Republican Party primary — promoted and bankrolled a ballot initiative that passed by a narrow margin — precisely 3,781 votes, out of more than 344,000.The consequences for Alaskan politics, and for the country, could be seismic. New York, Maine and Utah also have some form of ranked-choice voting, as do dozens of American cities. But the Alaska approach — which combines ranked-choice voting across party lines with an instant runoff between several top candidates — goes further in disrupting political parties’ influence.Second choices matterIn the first stage of the complex new system, voters in a primary pick from a list of candidates from all parties and ideological stripes.The top four finishers then make the ballot for the general election, when voters rank up to four choices in order of preference: first, second, third and fourth — or none at all.Over multiple rounds of what is known as instant runoff or ranked-choice voting, election officials first eliminate candidates with no chance of winning and then reallocate the second, third and fourth choices of their voters to others.Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska doing interviews at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Anchorage in July.Ash Adams for The New York TimesNicholas Begich III, a Republican, failed to meet the threshold, meaning his votes were reallocated based on their second choices. But 15,000 voters who preferred Mr. Begich crossed party lines to select Ms. Peltola as their backup pick instead of Ms. Palin. A further 11,000 Begich voters opted for no second choice or another candidate. In total, that meant that nearly half of Mr. Begich’s voters, presumably Republicans, did not vote for Ms. Palin.Scott Kendall, a leading proponent of the Alaska system, said in an interview on Thursday: “The campaign that Nick Begich ran was a clinic in how to have your party lose a ranked-choice election.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Lisa Murkowski and Kelly Tshibaka Advance in Alaska’s Senate Contest

      by

      Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a centrist Republican seeking a fourth full term in Washington, advanced to the general election along with her chief rival, Kelly Tshibaka, in the state’s Senate primary race, according to The Associated Press. Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Tshibaka each earned enough votes to advance to the general election in the fall as part of Alaska’s new open primary system. Ms. Murkowski is hoping to fend off a conservative backlash over her vote in the Senate to convict former President Donald J. Trump of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. With an estimated 50 percent of the vote reported, Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Tshibaka were neck and neck at just over 40 percent apiece. The nearest rival after them was in the single digits.Ballots are still being counted, and two other candidates will also advance as part of the state’s top-four system, but it was unclear which two.Ms. Murkowski, 65, is the only Senate Republican on the ballot this year who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial. She has been frank about her frustrations with Mr. Trump’s hold over the Republican Party, though she has maintained the backing of the Senate Republican campaign arm. She has also repeatedly crossed the aisle to support bipartisan compromises and Democratic nominees, including the nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and the confirmation of Deb Haaland, the Interior secretary. And she is one of just two Senate Republicans who support abortion rights and have expressed dismay over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a move that eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years.Those stances have rallied both national and local Republicans against her, and her impeachment vote garnered her a censure from Alaska’s Republican Party. Mr. Trump, furious over her vote to convict him, summoned his supporters to line up behind Ms. Tshibaka, a former commissioner in the Alaska Department of Administration, who fashioned herself as an “America First” candidate who could more adequately represent conservatives in the state. “It’s clear that we are at a point where the next senator can either stand with Alaska or continue to enable the disastrous Biden administration that is damaging us more every day,” Ms. Tshibaka wrote in an opinion essay published days before the primary. “When I’m the next senator from Alaska, I will never forget the Alaskans who elected me, and I will always stand for the values of the people of this great state.”Kelly Tshibaka at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Anchorage in July. In addition to his endorsement, she has the backing of the Alaska Republican Party.Ash Adams for The New York TimesBut the new open primary system, paired with the use of ranked-choice voting in the general election, was designed in part with centrist candidates like Ms. Murkowski in mind, and was championed by her allies in the famously independent state. Voters in November can rank their top four candidates. If no candidate receives a majority, officials will eliminate the last-place finisher and reallocate his or her supporters’ votes to the voters’ second choices until one candidate has more than 50 percent of the vote.While she has never crossed that threshold in previous elections, Ms. Murkowski has overcome tough odds before: In 2010, she triumphed memorably with a write-in campaign after a stunning primary loss to a Tea Party challenger. That victory came largely because of a coalition of Alaska Natives and centrists. Ms. Murkowski has leveraged her seniority and her bipartisan credentials to make her case to voters in Alaska, highlighting the billions of dollars she has steered to the state through her role on the Senate Appropriations Committee and her role in passing the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law. She invokes her friendships with Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and the legacies of Alaska lawmakers like former Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, who died in March, to show that there is still a place in Congress for her style of legislating. “You’ve got to demonstrate that there are other possibilities, that there is a different reality — and maybe it won’t work,” Ms. Murkowski said in an interview this year. “Maybe I am just completely politically naïve, and this ship has sailed. But I won’t know unless we — unless I — stay out there and give Alaskans the opportunity to weigh in.”Her challengers, however, are seeking to capitalize on the frustrations toward Ms. Murkowski in both parties. In addition to branding her as too liberal for the state, Ms. Tshibaka has seized on simmering resentment over how Ms. Murkowski’s father, Frank, chose her to finish out his term as senator when he became governor in 2002. Alyce McFadden More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      In Alaska, the Race to Succeed Don Young Is Raucous and Crowded

      by

      ANCHORAGE — The race began, fittingly, in the spring season known here as breakup.As sheets of ice cracked into pieces across the rivers, melting snow exposed the gravel and dust on roads, and preparations began for hunting and fishing, dozens of congressional campaigns were springing to life with barely a few days of planning. Candidates held solemn conversations with their families, advisers hastily secured website domains and the endorsements and donations began flooding in.The unexpected death in March of Representative Don Young, the Republican who represented Alaska’s sole congressional district for nearly half a century, has given rise to a crowded and raucous race to succeed him. No fewer than four dozen Alaskans — political veterans, gadflies, and even a man legally named Santa Claus — are running to succeed Mr. Young as the lone representative in the House for the state’s 734,000 people.The list of candidates is sprawling. It includes former Gov. Sarah Palin, who is endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump; Nick Begich III, whose grandfather held the seat before Mr. Young; four Alaska Natives, including one, Tara Sweeney, who served in the Trump administration; Jeff Lowenfels, a retired lawyer and a prolific local gardening columnist; and Mr. Claus, a portly, bearded North Pole councilman and socialist.“That’s a lot of people to do research on and figure out,” said Morgan Johnson, 25, as her black cat, Edgar, prowled across the counter of her plant shop in Juneau. “I get stuck on one person’s Instagram for an hour — now I have to do that for 48 people.”Morgan Johnson, of Juneau, is just one voter doing research before choosing which primary candidate will get her vote.Ash Adams for The New York TimesFurther complicating the picture, four separate elections in five months will determine Mr. Young’s successor. First, the throng of candidates will compete in a primary contest on June 11. The top four finishers will then advance in August to a special election to complete the remainder of Mr. Young’s term. That same August day, the candidates who choose to do so will compete in yet another primary to determine which four advance to the general election. And finally in November, voters will choose a winner to be sworn in in January 2023.The sheer volume of candidates owes in part to a new electoral system in Alaska, which opens primaries to all comers, regardless of political affiliation. Under the rules, voters can choose one candidate, and the four who draw the most votes then compete in a runoff of sorts, in which voters then rank their choices. The preferences are counted until someone secures a majority.State officials and advocacy groups are rushing to pull off the rapid-fire contests and ensure that voters understand how the new rules work.“We’re compressing everything that usually is done in about seven months in 90 days,” said Gail Fenumiai, Alaska’s director of elections, who said her team would mail and process more than 586,000 ballots. “There’s a significant amount of work involved.”State officials decided to hold the special election by mail, in part because there was not enough time for the necessary hiring and training of more than 2,000 new election workers, as well as testing and sending election equipment across the state. A ballot was carefully designed to fit all the names on one side of paper, with the first ones sent out less than six weeks after Mr. Young died.Understand the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarAfter key races in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states, here’s what we’ve learned.Trump’s Invincibility in Doubt: With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates failing to win, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.G.O.P. Governors Emboldened: Many Republican governors are in strong political shape. And some are openly opposing Mr. Trump.Voter Fraud Claims Fade: Republicans have been accepting their primary victories with little concern about the voter fraud they once falsely claimed caused Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss.The Politics of Guns: Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to use messaging about guns to galvanize their base in the midterms. Here’s why.Candidates have also had little time to build a campaign that stands out or crisscross a mountainous state where villages and towns are often accessible only by plane or ferry.“When you’re vying for a limited set of first-round votes, you have to figure out how to put yourself forward in a way that people will hear it and resonate with it,” said Christopher Constant, an Anchorage assemblyman and Democrat who announced his intent to challenge Mr. Young in February.The broad field has roiled the close-knit political circles here, pitting longtime colleagues and friends against one another.“This seat has been held for 49 years by one guy, and people are just hungry to have a different voice in Congress, and they think that they can add to it,” said John Coghill, a former state senator who is among the candidates.Christopher Constant, a Democrat, announced his plan to challenge Mr. Young in February.Ash Adams for The New York TimesMary Peltola, a Democrat, is an enrolled member of the Yupik tribe.Ash Adams for The New York TimesIt has also cracked the door open for a series of history-making bids, including four candidates who would be the first Alaska Native to represent a state where more than 15 percent of the population identifies as Indigenous.“It is long past time that an Indigenous person was sent to D.C. to work on behalf of Alaska,” Mary Peltola, a Democrat who spent a decade in the state Legislature and is Yup’ik, said in an interview in Anchorage. Ms. Peltola is among the candidates who have gone to great lengths to highlight a personal connection or appreciation for Mr. Young.The fiercest competition is inside the Republican Party, where younger conservatives who had waited their entire lives in Mr. Young’s shadow are contending for the mantle of his successor. The filing deadline was on April 1, two weeks after Mr. Young died, meaning that candidates had to decide whether to run before funeral services for the congressman had concluded.“It stunned the entire state, and then having to figure out what this new reality was going to look like and what processes were in front of Alaskans with respect to this vacancy — it’s been exhausting,” said Ms. Sweeney, a co-chair of Mr. Young’s campaign and now a candidate for his seat.Tara Sweeney, a Republican, has campaigned on her personal connection to Mr. Young and her experience in Washington.Mark Thiessen/Associated PressMs. Sweeney, who is Inupiaq and the first Alaska Native woman to serve as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, has emerged as a leading contender for Republicans, with top Alaska Native-owned corporations banding together to back her campaign. Mr. Begich, a conservative whose grandfather of the same name held the seat as a Democrat until his disappearance in a plane crash in 1972, angered many in Mr. Young’s inner circle by jumping into the race in October as a challenger, dangling what they saw as insinuations that the congressman was too old.The chosen candidate of the state Republican Party, Mr. Begich has disavowed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill Mr. Young proudly championed and the congressman’s penchant for earmarking federal dollars for Alaska.“For too long, the formula in Alaska has been to sacrifice the good of the nation for the good of the state, and I don’t think that that’s a formula that we need to be practicing going forward,” Mr. Begich said in an interview. Mr. Young’s allies have gravitated toward less conservative candidates.Those include Ms. Sweeney and Josh Revak, a state senator and an Iraq war veteran who secured a coveted endorsement from Mr. Young’s widow, Anne. Nick Begich’s grandfather held the sole Alaska congressional seat before Mr. Young.Ash Adams for The New York TimesMr. Revak secured a coveted endorsement from Mr. Young’s widow, Anne.Ash Adams for The New York Times“It was a really difficult choice, but if he believed in me and others believe in me, that I have the heart and the work ethic and the experience to do the job, then I’ll walk through fire to do it,” Mr. Revak, wearing an ivory bolo tie with the Alaska Senate seal and his Purple Heart pin, said after a recent fund-raiser at an Anchorage home.Ms. Palin’s late entry into the race — and Mr. Trump’s near-immediate endorsement of her — has further scrambled the political picture. As a former governor and vice-presidential candidate, Ms. Palin, whose campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, easily has the strongest name recognition in the field of candidates.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Sarah Palin Knows How to Get Attention. Can She Actually Win?

      by

      Endorsed by Donald Trump for Alaska’s lone House seat, the former vice-presidential candidate hopes she can mount a political comeback. But she’s not the phenomenon she once was.The last time Sarah Palin and Donald Trump shared a stage together, the former Alaska governor gave a meandering endorsement speech that displayed her inventiveness with the English language — and her instinctive connection to the Republican base.She spoke of “right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religions and our Constitution” and railed against “squirmishes” abroad. It was 20 minutes of vintage Palinisms: “He’s going rogue left and right” — “No more pussy footin’ around!” — “Doggone right we’re angry!” — “us Joe six-packs.” BuzzFeed published the transcript in full, calling it “bizarre.”Beneath the malapropisms and the circumlocutions, though, Palin turned out to have a shrewder feel for Republican voters than those in the press who scorned her, and who underestimated him.Palin’s endorsement of Trump in January 2016 gave him credibility on the populist right at a crucial moment, though it didn’t put him over the top in Iowa, where Senator Ted Cruz of Texas won the caucuses that year. The move even briefly fueled speculation that the two might form a ticket — him the brash, unpredictable New York billionaire; her the snowmobile-drivin’, moose-huntin’ Mama Grizzly from Wasilla. Tabloid dynamite!Trump has now returned the favor, offering Palin his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in her race to succeed Representative Don Young, Alaska’s lone House member, who died on March 18.But six years after they shared that stage in Iowa, both Trump and Palin are somewhat diminished figures. He, of course, is a twice-impeached former president. And though he remains the Republican Party’s most powerful person, his endorsements don’t carry the punch they once did.Palin, meanwhile, has been left to lament, during her libel trial against The New York Times, how she lost her TV gigs and her national political platform. In October, the last time anyone tried to gauge her popularity in Alaska, Palin’s approval rating was just 31 percent, according to the Alaska pollster Ivan Moore.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.So the question must be asked: Can Donald Trump help Sarah Palin win?“I think she’s the favorite right now,” said Kristopher Knauss, a political consultant in Alaska. But that does not mean Palin is a lock.What’s going for herPalin enters the race with some significant advantages.She’ll have near-universal name recognition. She should be able to raise significant sums of money from small donors — a must, given how soon the June 11 primary will be held. She was a popular governor, though by the end of her tenure, her approval rating had slunk from the low 90s to the mid-50s. And the national interest in the race will lead to free media coverage that her opponents can’t match.Palin and Trump share much in common. She ran for governor in 2006 as an outsider taking on a corrupt political establishment. In 2008, as the vice-presidential running mate for Senator John McCain of Arizona, she pioneered the raucous style of political rallies that Trump would turn into the defining feature of his 2016 run. Many of his campaign themes were first hers: battling the media, railing at cultural elites, trashing Washington insiders.Like Trump, Palin parlayed her celebrity into a reality TV show — “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” which was produced by Mark Burnett, the mastermind of “The Apprentice.” The show got decent ratings, but was canceled after just one season.The two saw each other as kindred spirits, their allies say. In 2011, when Palin was flirting with a presidential run, she visited New York and sat down with Trump and his wife for pizza at Famous Famiglia. (They shared “a pepperoni pizza, a sausage pizza and a meatball pizza,” according to an account at the time by our colleague Trip Gabriel.)Today, Palin is being represented by Michael Glassner, who was the chief operating officer of Trump’s 2020 campaign. The two go way back: Glassner worked with Palin on the McCain campaign, then was the chief of staff of Palin’s political action committee before Trump hired him as his national political director.But that was all long ago, and Palin is no longer a novelty — she’s a 58-year-old former governor who hasn’t held office in more than a decade, and whose star has faded considerably.Trump has backed Palin in her race to succeed Representative Don Young, Alaska’s lone House member, who died on March 18.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesWhat’s going against herPalin’s strong name recognition is unlikely to be decisive, said Mike Murphy, a former McCain adviser. Noting her high negative ratings, he said “Palin fatigue” could doom her chances among voters who revered Young and take his replacement seriously.“Crazy times deserve crazy politicians, so it’s not impossible that she wins,” Murphy said. “Though I would bet against it.”Palin will be competing in a huge field — 51 candidates, including Santa Claus.That’s partly by design. The voting system Alaska adopted in 2020 was meant to encourage a wide range of candidates to compete. Rather than begin with separate primary elections held by the major political parties, the race will start with one primary that is open to everyone who qualifies. The top four candidates then advance to a general election in which voters rank their favorites.The system was intended to discourage negative campaigning. Because voters’ second choices are factored into the results, candidates must be careful not to alienate voters who support their rivals. In the New York mayor’s race, this led some candidates to form alliances and campaign together. Does Palin have the discipline to play nice?“Ultimately, someone’s got to get to 50 percent,” said Moore, the pollster. “That’s tough to do when 56 percent don’t like you.”Moore said that in the fall, when he modeled Palin’s inclusion in a hypothetical four-way Senate general election between Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Republican incumbent; Kelly Tshibaka, the hard-right Republican challenger; and Elvi Gray-Jackson, a Democratic state lawmaker, Palin was eliminated in the first round.Alaska’s fierce independent streak could also hurt Palin’s chances. More than 60 percent of its voters are not registered members of either major political party, and Trump is not especially popular. According to Moore, 43 percent of Alaskans have a “very negative” opinion of the former president.“Alaskans don’t like people from ‘outside’ telling them how to vote,” said Dermot Cole, an author and political blogger in Alaska. For that reason, he said, Trump’s endorsement is unlikely to carry much weight.Why Palin would want to return to politics is a bit of a mystery. She never enjoyed being governor, according to emails published by a disgruntled former aide, and she always seemed to resent the bruising coverage she received from the national news media. Alaska political observers could not recall her participating in any local causes over the 13 years since she announced that she would not be finishing her term, either.That abrupt departure, in favor of cultivating her national celebrity status, could undermine whatever advantages her famous name and Trump’s endorsement have given her, several of the observers said.“When she quit, she lost a great deal of whatever support she had left,” Cole said.But Palin has always made her own choices. Announcing her resignation in July 2009, she explained that she had no intention to do the expected.“We’re fishermen,” she said. “We know that only dead fish go with the flow.”What to read tonightPresident Biden called Russian attacks on civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Ukraine’s capital, a “war crime.” And an analysis of satellite images by The Times refuted claims by Russia that the killings in Bucha had occurred after its soldiers had left the town. Read the latest on the war in Ukraine.Democrats’ calls for the Justice Department to take more aggressive action in the Jan. 6 investigation are putting pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has maintained a deliberative approach.A major report from a United Nations panel found that while nations have made some progress in moving away from fossil fuels, they need to move much faster to retain any hope of preventing a perilous future for the planet.As Republican activists aggressively pursue conservative social policies in state legislatures across the country, liberal states are taking defensive actions, our colleagues Shawn Hubler and Jill Cowan report. This flurry of action is intensifying the differences between life in liberal- and conservative-led parts of the country — and it’s a sign of the consequences when state governments are controlled increasingly by single parties.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More