Here’s an update to a story that James Joyner noted a few months back. NBC News reports: Dan Sullivan endorses Dan Sullivan to beat Dan Sullivan in perplexing Alaska Senate race.
The Republican former mayor of Anchorage, Dan A. Sullivan, endorsed GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan for re-election over retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan and Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola on Tuesday.
“As the OG Dan Sullivan, I urge Alaskans to vote for Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. He’s been great for Alaska,” the former mayor wrote on Facebook.
Here are the basics:
Both Dan S. Sullivan and Peltola advanced to the general election in November after the all-party primary last week. The primary is decided by ranked-choice voting, and the top four finishers advance, regardless of political affiliation. NBC News has not yet made a call regarding who the other two candidates will be, but Dan J. Sullivan could be among them.
Alaska’s Senate race is considered one of the most competitive this cycle, when control of the upper chamber hangs in the balance. With primary votes left to count, Peltola so far has 48% of the vote, with Sen. Dan S. Sullivan taking 43%. Dan J. Sullivan — who is running as a Republican — has 2.4%, with other candidates getting considerably fewer votes.
To move on from the dance of the Dans, these results lend another data point to the debate over Top Four. While I will readily allow that it takes time for a given set of rules to produce changes in electoral behavior, the fact that two major candidates have captured the lion’s share of the vote is more or less what one would expect in a single-seat district election in the context of a pre-existing party system where all of the other incentives remain in place for voters to adhere to those parties. This Senate race is going to be very much about Trump and control of the Senate, and is not the kind of political context wherein voters are going to be interested in experimentation.
Moreover, in a race for one seat with an incumbent running (Dan S., for those keeping score at home) and another statewide office-holder (Peltola) in the mix, the odds were always that those two would capture almost all of the votes.
Ranked choice voting in a single-seat district is simply not going to produce significant deviations from existing political patterns.
On the one hand, it is heartening to see some level of experimentation with electoral rules, but on the other hand, things like Top Two, Top Four, and various RCV experiments in single-seat districts are weak sauce that simply are not going to change much of anything.
For example: had the parties had regular primaries, I feel confident in making the bold prediction that Dan S. and Peltola would be the nominees who would then face each other in a close contest in November. We would then be spared the Dan drama.
In the abstract, the notion that Top Four means that the eventual winner has 50%+1 support is something I like, but also don’t think is especially worth the cost (in time and process) to get there.
I still think that thinking Top Four/any RCV process in single-seat contests is major reform is like someone who thinks getting chocolate swirls instead of vanilla ice cream is making a bold and daring choice.
There are far more interesting and efficacious options out there.
