NBC News (“Why Mary Peltola is on track to win in Alaska, even if ranked choice ballots come into play“):
As Alaska continues to count and report votes weeks after Election Day, it is increasingly unlikely that Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan will hang on to his job.
His Democratic challenger, Mary Peltola, is on track to win the still-unresolved Senate race under either possible scenario — with an outright majority, or if the race goes to ranked choice ballots, according to an NBC News Decision Desk analysis of outstanding and tabulated votes.
Peltola currently leads Sullivan by 3.7 percentage points, or just over 10,000 votes. With 96% of the expected vote in, NBC News’ Decision Desk now believes Peltola is likely to win this race, though we may need to wait until Wednesday, Nov. 18, to know the final result.
If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote, Alaska determines a winner using ranked choice voting, in which the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated one by one and their votes are redistributed according to each voter’s ranked preferences. If a voter did not rank the remaining candidates, their ballots are considered “exhausted” and are excluded from the final vote count.
Wednesday is Alaska’s deadline for final mail absentee ballots to be received by election officials, one reason why this close race has lingered for so long. Alaska reports its votes unevenly, and NBC News expects to see the remainder of these votes early next week.
Nov. 18 is also the day the state Division of Elections would run the ranked choice tabulation, if needed.
Here’s what the race looks like with the already-released votes:
The good news for Sullivan is that both of the non-factor candidates would seem to be in his column. Both Heikes, who is listed on the ballot as a Republican, and namesake Daniel L. Sullivan, Jr. were recruited by the Peltola campaign as spoilers. One might think that those votes would be Dan S. Sullivan’s in the redistribution.
Not so fast, my friends.
There are currently 11,300 tallied ballots with first-choice votes for candidates other than Peltola and Sullivan. Those ballots may be redistributed in the ranked choice process. With 4% of the total vote outstanding, the number of ballots with first-choice votes for candidates other than Peltola and Sullivan could rise to around 12,000. For Sullivan to net 10,400 ballots out of a pool of 12,000 and close the gap with Peltola, he would need to win around 93% of redistributed votes.
However, even that steep figure is misleadingly optimistic for Sullivan because of what we already know about how people are ranking the candidates.
The Alaska Division of Elections posts a “Cast Vote Record” for the over-270,000 ballots currently tabulated. These records show exactly how each candidate is ranked on each ballot.
Our analysis of those ballots shows that Sullivan does gain some votes from the ranked choice process, receiving a large transfer of votes from voters who backed Republican Gerald Heikes, who is in third place. But the most important thing about these votes is that a large percentage of ballots from those who backed other candidates are “exhausted” in the ranked choice tabulation process.
Over 45% of voters who ranked Heikes, Dan J. Sullivan Jr. or a write-in candidate did not rank Peltola or Sen. Dan S. Sullivan as a later choice, which means that these ballots will play no role in the ranked choice tabulation. [emphasis mine]
So, while ranked-choice voting is intended to allow people to signal support for their preferred candidate without fear of “wasting” their vote, the reality seems to be that a significant number did so as a None of the Above signal. And, weirdly, quite a number who voted for the second Republican on the ballot or the faux Dan Sullivan preferred the Democrat as their second option.
Go figure.
Given the ballot shenanigans—and the fact that the tsunami was otherwise large enough to leave no doubt that voters were repudiating the administration’s policies—I had hoped Peltola would be defeated. But, rather clearly, anger at Trump and company outpaced whatever displeasure Alaska voters had over Peltola’s ratfucking.
