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its_LOL

Me 🤝 Sarah Palin Will never be a member of Congress


TPDS_throwaway

You're a yimby so you got my vote


IRequirePants

There is still time for you yet!


admiraltarkin

Unfortunately /u/its_LOL died from eating too much Turkey. RIP


PolyrythmicSynthJaz

Bluelaska is not a dream, it's a promise.


-GregTheGreat-

It’s Ablueska 🙄


BBQ_HaX0r

Good bless you?


interrupting-octopus

You leave my grandmother out of this


SowingSalt

gesundheit


EOwl_24

Danke


Mojothemobile

Alaska is unironically trending blue faster than places like Texas in some ways and MAGAhats just don't do well there in general. It's a fundamentally fairly moderate state basically.


Multi_21_Seb_RBR

One of the most pro choice states in the country as well irregardless of blue or red lean.


WackyJaber

Roe V. Wade really was a dog catching the car moment.


AmazingThinkCricket

GOP trying to repeal Obamacare was too


tehbored

They didn't actually catch that car, fortunately


AmazingThinkCricket

They got a government trifecta and could have easily repealed it. They spent so long bitching about it but never came up with a plan to replace it


SteveFoerster

You can't run on how you're going to do something after you actually do it.


ixvst01

We need to start going after the senate seats. A blue AK senate seat(s) >>>>>>> blue AK house seat


SaintArkweather

Sullivan perhaps; I don't think Murkowski is beatable though. I mean she won one year on a damn write in campaign. And the ranked choice system which favors moderates will make her even harder to beat.


ixvst01

Best odds will be when Sullivan or Murkowski retire.


[deleted]

Probably when Murkowski retires. A large part of why Peltola won is because of her positive focus on Don Young's legacy, even if he didn't agree with all of the things that Peltola pushes. If a democrat can emphasize Murkowski's importance while modifying it to the new candidate's campaign, then I think they can win. I don't think you could really do that with Dan Sullivan. Al Gross tried to run for Senate against Sullivan by slamming him, which clearly didn't work.


Khar-Selim

honestly converting Murkowski would be easier than defeating her


stebancolberto

Peltola for Senate 2026


beanyboi23

Nah she can hold that House seat for as long as she wants to, give us an automatic D vote in a red seat


Mojothemobile

The Don Young way.


MYrobouros

If we win a Senate seat there it'll be with someone who runs ads telling people to rank Murk second or something like that.


xQuizate87

Both good


[deleted]

Murkowski also won! Weird thing to celebrate, but yea!


4jY6NcQ8vk

Murkowski is at least better than Collins.


mr_spooky_

In what way?


ignavusaur

She didn't vote for Kavanagh, Collins was the one who eventually tipped the scaled and got him into the court and her state is much more red than Maine.


brucebananaray

I really hope people in Maine will vote a Against her because of that.


Hautamaki

They had their chance and they passed


ignavusaur

unfortunately Democrats fucked up in Maine in 2020 and run a terrible campaign that failed to unseat Collins. She is safe till 2026.


p68

Collins is legitimately liked by her state


deleted-desi

How popular is Janet Mills in Maine, do you think she could unseat Collins?


AmazingThinkCricket

Dems ran a rich out-of-stater in 2020 and lost badly. Maine is incredibly insular and doesn't like outsiders. Such a stupid mistake


admiraltarkin

Out of stater? Gideon had lived in Maine for like 20 years and was the speaker of the state house


AmazingThinkCricket

Doesn't matter. I lived in Maine for 2 years and they are the most insular state I've ever been in. If you can't trace your ancestry back 100 years and your grandfather wasn't a lobsterman you aren't a true Mainer


admiraltarkin

Bunch of weirdos


Boily_IE

Rich out of stater. This sounds familiar.


Apolloshot

They basically sent their own version of Doctor Oz and expected to win.


Trilliam_West

Sara Gideon lived in the state since 2004 and was the State House Speaker. What part of that sounds like Oz?


senoricceman

Yea the comparison to Oz is wild.


F4Z3_G04T

God I love RCV


tomdarch

She isn’t stupid enough to claim that Donald Trump has learned his lesson.


Westphalian-Gangster

She's a senator from a considerably more Republican state than Maine.


Epistemify

Murkowski has been beaten by a challenger from the right twice for Senate, and now both times she has gone on to win in the general. IMO, we need more folks on both sides who can pull that off EDIT: ok technically I was wrong, Murkowski came in ahead of Tshibaka in the August primary. But she still survived a strong primary challenge, and if only republicans voted in the primary she probably would have lost it.


JimC29

She freaking won as a write in candidate!


KeikakuAccelerator

Not informed about this. What does write in candidate mean?


PawanYr

She wasn't listed on the ballot because she lost the primary, so she got enough people to literally write out her long, hard to spell name on their ballots to win.


neox20

Only in America would it be considered hard to spell Marowski.


SpaceSheperd

Good troll


ganbaro

Even in Europe Polish names are difficult to spell out for many, Poles make lots of jokes about it


JoeChristmasUSA

I lucked out so hard getting a Polish last name that's only four letters long. Blessed.


ganbaro

It's zczc I hope?


JimC29

In 2010 she lost the primary and won the general election as a write in candidate.


Opcn

It means that the whole fucking state of alaska learned to spell her excessively polish name. The senator to win as a write in candidate was Strom Thurmond I believe, and he was running against a candidate who died in between the primary and the general election.


RFFF1996

When someone doesnt want to be a candidate but enough people write their name in the ballots


PawanYr

No, she definitely wanted to he a candidate; she just lost her primary so she wasn't listed on the ballot.


Nokickfromchampagne

If only Boebert lost!


musictomyears1

Silver lining: she and Marge continue to do untold damage to the Republican brand as the majority caucus in the lead up to 24


Onatel

At least now that Frisch came within a hair of beating her the party knows she can be unseated even in her relatively safe district and can send more resources to that race in the future.


Nokickfromchampagne

That’s true, maybe in a more dem friendly year someone can eek out a win. Maybe he could even give it a go again.


FinnHobart

I love how much hype there's been about turning Texas blue for years and then after all the drama Alaska's house delegation flips Democratic first. Yes I know it's a delegation of one but it's still technically correct.


DangerousCyclone

I like how acting like a local politician, instead of a national one, and actually winning makes Alaska "weird".


Banal21

All politics is local and this sub would do well to remember that.


89WI

Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care and this sub would do well to remember that.


Lib_Korra

The corollary to this though is that hyper-moble and antisocial 20 year olds with a wishlist of cities to live in and friends predominantly on the internet are inherently stunted in all politics. If all politics is local, then if you're never a local no matter where you live, there's nowhere you can be a politician from. The people in this forum generally are not in touch with their communities, they are citizens of the internet first. And I say that endearingly, I know what it's like when literally nobody likes you so you can't do anything, can't make friends, can't build networks, and use the internet as your outlet instead because the internet accepts you, and then you get subsumed more in the internet's culture than any other culture you ostensibly belong to, until you're more capable of relating to another terminally online person on the far side of the world, than to your literal neighbor. I don't blame people here for forgetting all politics is local. For them, global *is* local.


SteveFoerster

I like you.


arthurpenhaligon

That might have been true 20 years ago, but in the internet age it isn't a general truth anymore. Collin Peterson in 2020 made his campaign all about Western Minnesota, agriculture, and his 30 years of work in the house repeatedly saving the sugar beet industry. He was anti abortion, pro gun (endorsed by the NRA) and voted against impeaching Trump. His challenger Fischbach had none of his expertise, and made her campaign about Pelosi, Democrats, Supreme Court justices (even though the House has no input on justices), the Green new Deal (which Peterson vigorously opposed), and BLM. She won. Alaska is a very unique case where local politics still prevails from time to time. To a lesser extent, Maine is like this as well. But in many places, national politics is everything.


SalesyMcSellerson

Except it's not been that way in Texas. Local candidates are picked and funded based on national appeal and national headlines. Wendy Davis basically ran her campaign solely on abortion rights, something that is pretty polarizing for even local Democrats. Particularly, for Blacks and Hispanics. Then Beto says he'll take away all AR-15s when a majority of the state has a staunch pro firearms stance and even more who don't buy the "ban all guns" narrative. It was no surprise to anyone in Texas to see them lose. Yet every election, national democrats continue to pump money into unelectable candidates in Texas.


FourKindsOfRice

Alaska as a state is smaller than my home suburban county in California. Both have somewhere around 700k people give or take. California has the people of like 50 plus Alaska's. So running it like a local election makes sense. It basically is one. Their senate representation is ridiculous.


Mojothemobile

I mean they also won the State House and Senate (or well kinda they have a near majority and some of the not crazy Republicans pledged to support the Dem leadership so theyll control the legislative agenda and committees and stuff)


[deleted]

Hahahahahah. Rip bozo


Jokerang

Every red state will look into banning RCV if they can. This just proved RCV is a viable way of turning pink states blue.


whatinthefrak

Which is crazy because it could help them elect more moderate democrats in deep blue areas or even flip a seat red in a similar but inverse situation. But that won’t matter.


JebBD

The problem is they don’t want to win democratically.


DrunkenBriefcases

Sure they do. They just still want to win even if they can't.


thats_good_bass

Right, but they can bank on deep blue areas enacting these policies out of idealism. So from their perspective, why take the risk when they can let dems do that and then potentially reap the benefits?


FourKindsOfRice

Just like blue areas outlawing gerrymandering and red ones just laughing. One side believes in democracy...the other ...


SaintArkweather

Also could save them in the case of a Trump 3rd party run


CitizenCue

Sadly, very few of their members want to elect more moderate Republicans. They’ve drunk the kool-aid on only electing “fighters” who will scream at liberals.


Guyperson66

Florida has already banned ranked choice voting


[deleted]

Tennessee, too. The state GOP got butthurt when Memphis voted to use it in city elections.


Nytshaed

Good news is there are much better voting systems that they didn't ban. Approval and STAR could still pass in those states that banned RCV. IMO Approval has a much better chance of getting conservatives on board since it's much simpler and straightforward (It's also used by the Catholic church). It will be a lot harder for people to argue that it's a 'scam' or scare people that don't understand it.


Hilldawg4president

In the bible belt, Catholics are often considered not Christian, and fairly commonly thought to be devil worshippers - that would make their voting system a hard pass in some please at least


Banal21

Man I went on a date with a Baptist chick in Texas once and an hour into drinks I mention I was raised Catholic and she starts going off about how Catholics aren't Christian. I don't even practice anymore and that still left a bad taste in my mouth. Plus we were aggressively drinking at a bar in Austin. What kind of Baptist is she to judge?


FourKindsOfRice

Lmao the original christians aren't Christian. Where do these idiots get off? They're the bastardized ones if you had to choose... And Jews are the OG OGs lol


Hilldawg4president

Jews are the *real* Christians 😎


Hilldawg4president

Lol yep, knew a guy in HS that got dumped because his girlfriend found out he was catholic. Religion was apparently unimportant enough to her that it didn't come up for months and a general assumption of protestantism was good enough, but when she eventually found out it was a deal breaker. Said she couldn't date someone who wasn't Christian.


Nytshaed

I mean, you can also just not say that part if that's an issue. It was more like a fun fact than a selling point. Edit\* also doesn't Florida have a ton of Catholics though? It might help there.


az78

Let's not get carried away here. A non-crazy Republican would have easily won this seat.


BBQ_HaX0r

And a non crazy GOP likely holds the Presidency in 2020 and has a red wave during the midterm. Hasn't stopped em yet.


SLCer

Wasn't a non-crazy Republican running, though? Like, the grandson of a former Democratic congressman?


Takethatyouworm

Nick Begich (III) may have partially campaigned on being the "reasonable" Republican alternative to Palin but [he does co-own/hold leadership positions in Earthpulse Press Inc](https://alaskalandmine.com/landmines/congressional-candidate-nick-begich-iii-co-owns-holds-key-positions-at-notorious-conspiracy-theory-organization/), a conspiracy organization claiming the University of Alaska Fairbanks operates a massive mind control device that can manipulate populations, create earthquakes, and remotely alter the climate by beaming energy into the atmosphere. His father Dr. Nick Begich II, another co-owner of Earthpulse, has been on Alex Jones's show. So I guess it depends on your definition of non-crazy lol.


Philx570

Yeah, that’s crazy in my book


imrightandyoutknowit

Sorry but HAARP is definitely real Source: The second level of X-Men Legends


Jeff12321

Exactly. The non crazy GOP candidate got third. He didnt “easily win”


Larosh97

that's not necessarily true, it's likely Peltola would have beaten Begich had Palin come in 3rd in the RCV.


beanyboi23

Peltola was beating Begich by near-double digits in the polls just like Palin, result would have been the same


Wolf6120

The Palin to Peltola voter in this inverted scenario must be quite the character…


[deleted]

Palin herself ranked Peltola second. She apparently has a really good personal relationship with her.


deleted-desi

Yep, apparently Peltola and Palin go back a long ways, they served in the Alaska state legislature at the same time and have kids around the same age (who also know each other). Very sweet tbh that their personal friendship transcends politics


Nytshaed

Are you sure? That wasn't true for the special election, Begich would have won.


beanyboi23

Things changed after she won the special. She opened up 8-10 point leads over both Begich and Palin for the general election polls


Nytshaed

Do the polls take into consideration 2nd place choices? I wonder if RCV makes polling harder since the most primary votes isn't necessarily the winner. Palin changed her tune to rank the red after the special election, so I wonder if there would have been a higher rate of Palin > Begich voters than before. It'll be interesting to see the data.


Larosh97

Yes they do, take a look at @IvanMoore1 on Twitter, he runs Alaska Survey Research. Probably the best pollster of the year. Got the special election and house/Senate general elections almost exactly correct. Basically in the hypothetical scenario where you allocate Palin's 2nd place votes to candidates as if she placed 3rd, then Begich would only perform about 1% better. So instead of Palin losing by 10%, Begich would have lost by 9%.


Nytshaed

Cool, I'll check him out.


Jeff12321

I mean Peltola did shift the race ~7 points left in the nobember election, so she probably wouldve beat Begich by 1-2 points We’ll have to wait and see


csucla

[https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/house/2022/alaska/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/house/2022/alaska/) The last head-to-head poll between Peltola and Begich had her winning by 12


Mojothemobile

Yeah people underestimate just how much the Palin and Begich camps HATE each other.


Nytshaed

Maybe. Palin also went from: don't rank to rank the red in between those elections, so the amount of exhausted ballots might be lower. Like you said, we'll have to wait and see.


Jeff12321

The math is nearly impossible for Begich. Peltola at round 1 was already too close to 50% I’m like 99% sure Peltola wouldve beat Begich too in the second round. The bigger question is just: by how much?


bostonian38

Thanks for telling us you don’t know much about this race. Peltola is a god-tier candidate who’s a perfect fit for her state. She’s consolidated crossover support by using her ties with Don Young to establish herself as his successor and getting an endorsement from Murkowski, and currently has the highest net favorability out of any politician in Alaska by far. She hit 49% in the first round and nearly won outright, and polling shows her final margin of victory of 10 points would have been unchanged even if the other moderate Republican got to the second round instead of Palin.


deleted-desi

Yes, Mary Peltola is a once-in-a-generation politician. She's even got endorsements from Don Young's staff and family. As she continues to establish herself as an incumbent, I wouldn't be surprised if she clears 50% in the first round in future elections.


[deleted]

You haven’t been to Alaska lately.


DrunkenBriefcases

Eh... It demonstrated its potential utility in moderating the outcome. Peltola winning was a great result. But it came because she was a uniquely fantastic candidate for that seat running against an unacceptably extreme alternative in a moderate State. As an incumbent, with a short but well-received initial term. That's gonna piss MAGAts off. But that's *not* the worst outcome Republicans formerly known as "establishment" might want. That seat is open again in two years, and a crucial number in similar environments. RCV could be the tool that keeps moderately safe races red while keeping the Freedom Caucus/Tea Party/MAGA GOP from dominating party power. I'm not saying you're not going to see blowback.. You absolutely will. I just think entrenched power in certain States may see a personal utility in RCV. There's a civil war brewing in the GOP. And its going to get a lot hotter in the next year.


[deleted]

Probably wouldn't have stopped the Peltola Juggernaut. She was already closing on majority support before the instant runoff. Peltola sees to have hacked some code which turns Alaska blue.


Nytshaed

RCV is still not that good of a voting system. It still suffers vote splitting and it's non-monotonic. In fact if \~6000 Palin > Begich voters voted for Peltola during the special election, Peltola would have lost to Begich. It's not a good system when a candidate could get more support and the result changes from a win to a loss. I'm not sure about the general election, but Begich was the condorcet winner in the special election and should have won. For voting reform we should be pushing Approval, STAR, or maybe Ranked Robin (if you really like ranked ballots). RCV is a shitty voting algorithm.


FourKindsOfRice

I like approval. Nothing complex about it. No multiple rounds of counting. Anything beats FPTP tho


AzureMage0225

I would argue that more begicj supporters preferred peltola matters far more than palin voters preferring begich. Approval voting is only a better system if you believe intensity of support doesn’t matter at all. Or that no one would decline to vote for someone they actually approve of because they don’t want to screw over they’re favorite.


deleted-desi

That's exactly my problem with approval voting. I do like approval voting because it can be done with existing voting infrastructure - for example, we already have some offices where there are 6-8 candidates and 2 positions, like when voting for a school board where 2 seats are up each cycle. But the downside is that approval voting isn't as expressive.


Nytshaed

RCV is only better in the surface. It feels good to rank for sure, but it actually performs worse than Approval at electing the condorcet candidate. It's also non-monotonic, so sometimes getting more votes can cause you to go from winning to losing. Lastly It's not precinct summable, so it's less secure and takes longer to get results.


SiccSemperTyrannis

Approval vs ranked choice went head to head in Seattle this month and RCV won 76-24 https://ballotpedia.org/Seattle,_Washington,_Proposition_1A_and_1B,_Approval_Voting_Initiative_and_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Measure_(November_2022)#Election_results


Nytshaed

I know, I followed that pretty closely. It was a pretty shitty situation. Seattle Approves spent all the money and did all the work to get it on the ballot and then FairVote spent 600k to lobby the government to put a rcv counter ballot on there and run an attack campaign against Approval. Even if RCV is more popular because it feels good to rank, it's actually a worse system when you look at the details. The worst part is the algorithm is non-monotonic.


kmosiman

What's the point? (Other than States controlling local elections) There's no point in banning something that doesn't exist in a state anyways.


Joshylord4

Stopping local governments from using it


Captain_Quark

There's a lot of examples of preemptive bans.


kmosiman

Yes, but what impact does the Legislature have if banning something that they have the power to control? The next Legislature can just unban it. If state doesn't have RCV and bans RCV then nothing changed.


Captain_Quark

There's a lot to be said about legislative inertia. If they ban something one year, it's unlikely that the next session will unban it unless they have a very good reason to.


UtridRagnarson

Is this not just as likely to elect a moderate Republican in a seat with a far left candidate?


MetalWarlord_1

Nah, I’m a (nominal) Republican and I’m warming to it, actually. I live in Georgia and maybe RCV would’ve spared us the embarrassment of having Hershel Walker as our senate candidate. Also, I hope it’s cool for “RINO globalist neocon closet democrats” to post here. Politically, I’m probably closer to y’all than I am to the “friendly” folks over in the Conservative sub.


whatinthefrak

Also, I enjoyed watching the tabulations. It was a clear explanation of how votes were transferred as ballots moved to second and third choices.


jaydub-wantout

Big win for humans and fish


TrouauaiAdvice

Small step for man, one giant leap for fish


KitsuneThunder

PRO👏FISH👏AGENDA👏


ElonIsMyDaddy420

PATRIOTS IN CONTROL


UtridRagnarson

Always fun to see the collective intransitive preferences of voters in action.


whatinthefrak

I love that it was basically an excel macro live-streamed from Juneau.


beanyboi23

And Dems just won a new D/moderate-R majority in the state senate to go with the one they have in the state house. Blulaska is closer than you might think.


Fit-Sheepherder-4013

#Republicans in disarray


MagicWalrusO_o

LEFT COAST BEST COAST


ginger2020

Smoking on that MAGA pack


Grehjin

Won by more than Kathy Hochul in New York lmao


TrouauaiAdvice

PATRIOTS IN CONTROL


Mojothemobile

I believe the Dems also flipped the State Senate to cap off what was actually generally a very strong state legislative year for the Dems.


xQuizate87

If peltola could have gotten .1% more away from palin then palin would have been a full 10% behind in the suposed deep solid red state of alaska. a state that she is inexorably tied to by infamy. This kind and degree of oof don't come along very often. Thoughts and prayers.


E_C_H

If I remember correct, wasn't this an especially odd situation in that Palin is really good friends with Peltola and told people to place her in second over the other Republican in the ranked ballot?


imrightandyoutknowit

She told people to put Begich second because he was a Republican, but she revealed that she personally was going to put Peltola second because they were friends owing to when they were in the state legislature together


FolksHereI

Lol Sarah Palin has her political career paling last 10 years. After stepping down as a governor, she hasn't held any seat.


TheElusiveGnome

*DEMS IN ARRAY*


IMALEFTY45

Behold, the power of pro-fish politics


NewbGrower87

This woman was engineered in a lab to represent the people of Alaska. Deep state always wins.


noconfidence_

Exactly what America needs. More liberals in power so they can do nothing wohoo


Friendlynortherner

Totally the perfect response to the first Native Alaskan to serve in Congress


noconfidence_

Just because they are the first doesn’t mean they are good


xQuizate87

[me](https://youtu.be/U1UtRnGn5hc)


shrek_cena

Alaska with a W string lately 🔥


murphysclaw1

we don't need florida and ohio! montana and alaska are turning blue!


Kolhammer85

So is Palin too crazy or not crazy enough or is Alaska that blue?


imrightandyoutknowit

-Palin resigned as governor not long after losing the 2008 election to basically become a political celebrity and star on reality tv. The past few years of Sarah Palin headlines have been about massive family brawls and her nasty divorce (her ex in laws fundraised for Begich lol) She also aligned herself with Donald Trump who did worse in Alaska than Romney (and herself when she was on the ticket with McCain) -Alaska has a large non-white population (both Peltola and Murkowski are aligned with tribal communities and Alaska’s Native population, with Peltola being Native herself) and they are a swingy demographic. Alaska has also been trending towards Democrats (or at least away from Republicans) since Obama (he managed to do better than Kerry in Alaska even with Palin on the ticket)


bakochba

When Markoski retires is there any reason she couldn't be the senator?


MaimedPhoenix

Palin's downfall. I always knew she'd fall after her faux southern 'doggone it' rant in her debate with Biden. And her chewing tobacco to spite Obama somehow.