Alaska’s House District 13, a section of midtown Anchorage, has voted unanimously to request that any and all Republican congressional candidate in Alaska’s primary election make the promise to withdraw from the general election ballot if they don’t come in as the top-voted Republican.
The district has asked all other Republican committees to issue similar resolutions.
“In an effort to support the will of the voting populace in the State of Alaska, the Republican District Committee members of House District 13 of the Alaskan Republican Party (ARP) wish to address all registered Republican candidates for U.S. Congress and/or State offices, as well as our fellow District Committees within the Alaskan Republican Party,” the district wrote.
“We urge all Republican candidates who are opposed by at least one other Republican candidate for the Same U.S. Congress or State office to publicly declare their willingness to withdraw from the General Election if the results of the primary election favor another Republican candidate,” the district wrote. “Let it be recognized that failing to withdraw despite unfavorable primary election results risks diluting the collective focus and resources of the Republican District Committees.”
Of the four Republicans running for Congress to unseat Rep. Mary Peltola, only candidate Nick Begich has vowed to drop from the congressional race if he does not come out as the top Republican after Aug. 20.
Begich has been down this road before and didn’t drop out in 2022 when he came in 2 points behind Sarah Palin, the first time the system was used, which took both he and Palin to the final ballot in November.
He’s lived the history of the open-primary, ranked-choice voting system. He is also the only congressional candidate to have signed the petition to repeal it.
Nancy Dahlstrom, serving as lieutenant governor since 2022, has refused to make that promise and Gerald Heikes, a relative unknown who is now being promoted by the Democrats, has not said he would withdraw.
Those are the three Republicans who are likely to face Democrat Peltola in November. Matthew Salisbury, a Republican from Palmer running for Congress, has not announced such a commitment.
The same request is being made of any state candidate in cases where there will be more than one Republican heading into the general election. Those races would include a couple of Senate seats and several House seats:
- Senate Seat H in Anchorage has two Republicans running
- Senate Seat L in Eagle River has four Republicans running
- Senate Seat R in the Interior has two Republicans running
- House Seat 6 has two Republicans running
- House District 9 has three Republicans running
- House District 10 has two Republicans running (one is false-flag Republican)
- House District 27 has two Republicans running
- House District 28 has four Republicans running
- House District 30 has two Republicans running
- House District 34 has two Republicans (one is a false-flag Republican)
- House District 36 has four Republicans
- View all the candidates who are running in the primary at this Division of Elections link.
Under the new open-primary, ranked-choice voting system being used in Alaska, Alaska Republicans are disadvantaged because they will typically have more than one Republican in the final four who come out of the non-partisan primary; they will appear on the November ballot, where ranked choice voting takes place and where they can split the energy and money that the party would normally put toward one candidate, and split the vote, elevating the Democrat. The split vote happens because many Republicans do not believe in the ranked-choice system.
While the National Republican Congressional Committee has just starting a $1 million radio and television ad now running across in Alaska to support Dahlstrom, she may be likely to drop out of the race if she comes in second to Begich, because if Gov. Mike Dunleavy goes into the Trump Administration, she would become governor. But so far, she has only said that after the primary she wants to sit down and have a discussion with the governor.
Begich gave us petola when he stayed in the race he could not win. Easy math to do then and now.
Division of elections showed it was Palin who could not win. Famous RCV failure showing Begich would have beaten both Palin and Peltola in head to head one on one matchups led to RCV being banned in many states. Alaska lost but the nation benefited by seeing how devious ranked choice is.
This should now be obvious but Nancy has refused to make a commitment. She must be told not to by her backers.
Sarah, you beat Begich each and every time you went up against him. Why didn’t you concede the race to Begich?
And now he is willing to step down if he is not ahead after the primary. May people were blindsided by RCV in the 2020 election and a hard lesson was learned.
What a crock, it was you Palin voters that screwed it all up. Why would you vote for someone who didn’t even live in this state at the time? She was a quitter and did t deserve to represent this state.
What a crock, it was you Begich voters that screwed it all up. If Sarah had withdrawn from the race in favor of Begich, you Begich voters would have labeled her a Two-Time Quitter. If you Begich voters would have made a ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ promise not to ever call her a Two-Time Quitter, perhaps that would have convinced Sarah to withdraw from the race.
This sounds like a good idea.
It also highlights the nefarious nature of RCV.
We need to get the word out to repeal!
Rank voting is dumb and should be voted out this election cycle. That being said this idea is also dumb as it needlessly adds more confusion. What if in the races where there are four Republican candidates they make the top four in the ooen primary, should they drop out and allow three Democrats to take their places, what about the races with three Republicans should the same thing occur?
Vote to remove rank voting, but this election cycle Republicans ahould be more concerned with following the flawed law and counting. You don’t even need the ability to count to 4, 3 works just as well, or 2 if that’s all you can muster. I certainly won’t be ranking anyone I don’t want in office, but telling people to game the system just because the otherside does it just doesn’t sit right with me.
I hope Nancy Dahlstrom will do the honorable thing and drop out of the race if she comes in 2nd in the jungle primary. I appreciate that Nick Begich has promised to drop out, if he comes in 2nd.
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If Nancy Dahlstrom comes in 2nd, but stays in the race, in the general election I will rank Begich #1 and Dahlstrom #2. If Dahlstrom comes in first in the primary (with Nick Begich dropping out), I will gladly vote for Dahlstrom in the general election.
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If both stay in the race after the primary, I hope all conservatives will rank both Dahlstrom and Begich 1 and 2 or 2 and 1. I fear however, that many voters will forget, neglect, or decline to do that, for whatever reason, and Rep. Peltola will be reelected.
Need to push for this and stop giving away elections
In my opinion, if Dahlstrom refuses to drop out if she comes in second, she is only in the race to support Peltola for Congress.
“Pride goes before the fall.” Logic would have this a non-issue. Only Republicans seem to ignore what “Is” seemingly resulting in consistent loss to a structured Democrat party apparatus.
This situation holds such appearance.
Rinse and repeat the 2022 election with the same results…Peltola winning the seat again. The AK permanent red color is quickly fading away.
Bottom line; the republican candidates seem to be willing to do whats best for themselves and not the party, state or the people.
I mostly agree. EXCEPT for the Eagle River Chugiak state senate race. Kelly Merrick is a self designated Republican who handed the majority to the Democrats.
If it were Republicans and only Republicans voting in the primary she might be REJECTED. Unfortunately her husband can assemble the union vote, including teachers and public employees, they put up her 4 by 8 signs, the yard signs and vote.
Goecker, McCarty and the other lady need to make this, Merrick’s record an issue.
Eagle River Republicans need to educate themselves. Merrick did the same thing in the house. You should have known. Embarrassing that districts that voted 7 to 1 for Trump in 2020 voted this backstabber into office.
Absolutely agree, we didn’t vote for her last time because of her back stabbing ways and she won’t be getting our votes this time either.
May be wrong to ask other R’s besides “top-voted” one to withdraw. Begich and 2022 August special election proved that the R candidate who comes in 2nd or possibly even 3rd place pay actually be the most preferred candidate. Most preferred candidate of all voters may end up dropping out. The illogical Top 4 voting system design attempts to fix vote-splitting in the November 2nd-round with RCV, which doesn’t always succeed, but even worse, exacerbates massively the vote-splitting problem in the 1st-round with vote-one method (plurality) and 48 candidates!! The least they could do is allow block voting, or perhaps approval voting.
Dahlstrom = Murkowski and both stink …..imo.
Trump is clueless here again …. 1st that liberal Palin & now this.
Perhaps he should focus on winning the WH & leave us alone.
What a mess.
The RNC is suing 20 States for counting late Mail In voting, Ban Dominion voting machines,RCV and of course Mail In voting.
Support get off your @ss and vote in person, paper ballots , no late voting
NB3 = Number 1.
Dahlstrom = dumb*ss.
It’s a GOP problem , very simple . RCV was ushered in by a GOP candidate. Ak GOP should have explained the new voting process and instructed voters on how to vote in that election . Instead they ignored it and did not explain how to properly vote ! The GOP owns rank choice voting along with the demon rats