The Republican Party will gather in Milwaukee, Wisc. from July 15-18, 2024, a time when delegates from all 50 states, District of Columbia, and territories such as American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands, will formally select the GOP nominee for president at the Republican National Convention.
At the national convention, delegates from Alaska Republican district committees, chosen by their party peers at district and state conventions, will cast their votes on the national convention floor.
The Republican presidential choices for Alaska are chosen in a Presidential Preference Poll, to be held by the Alaska Republican Party around March 5, 2024, weeks before the July convention. The party will have to avoid the Anchorage municipal election, which will be taking place next mid-March to early April.
After the PPP, there is a state Republican convention.
The “PPP,” as it is known, is a caucus-by-ballot method of choosing the favored presidential candidate. It allows the participation of more people and saves voters the hassle of having to go to a gymnasium and stand around in a traditional caucus system.
Republicans in Alaska did not hold a PPP in 2020, because Donald Trump was a sitting Republican president who had the nomination sewed up, and because of the Covid pandemic making it more difficult for people to gather. The last PPP in Alaska was held March 1, 2016. Ted Cruz won the most votes that year in Alaska, among those who participated.
In 2016, Alaska Republicans taking part in the PPP cast their votes for:
- Ted Cruz: 36.4 percent
- Donald Trump: 33.5 percent
- Marco Rubio: 15.1 percent
- Ben Carson: 10.9 percent
- John Kasich: 4.1 percent
Only Republicans can take part in the GOP’s PPP, yet voters can register as a Republican 90 days prior to the PPP in order to cast a preference ballot, indicating which of the leading candidates (those who register in Alaska as presidential candidates) they prefer. The PPP is not a ranked choice voting system, but an advisory vote to the party delegates. Currently, there are 145,390 registered Republican voters in Alaska.
However, it’s not until after the July national convention when Alaskans and the rest of the country will know who the Republican nominee will be for the November ballot.
The Alaska Republican Party is starting the initial discussions about how to conduct the PPP in 2024, an event that will require volunteer training, grassroots involvement, and lots of new twists for a party that will not have conducted its privately held presidential preference vote for eight years.
None of the presidential candidates — from parties or independents — will be on the Alaska open primary ballot on Aug. 20, 2024.
However, all of the presidential candidates who register as candidates with the Alaska Division of Elections, and who are legally registered with the Federal Election Commission, will appear on the Nov. 5, 2024 General Election ballot, which is not a ranked choice ballot in Alaska. Federal law does not permit the presidential election to be conducted via ranked choice.
Where will Democrats meet to nominate Biden?
Milwaukee was also the choice for the Democrat Party’s nominating convention in 2020, but that convention was scuttled and held virtually, due to the Covid pandemic.
This year, the Democrats have not yet chosen a venue for their nominating convention. Three cities remain on the list: New York City, Atlanta, and Chicago. At this writing, New York City has been all but eliminated, and President Joe Biden is pulling for Atlanta, because Georgia was good to him during the 2020 election.
Unions are pushing for Chicago because it’s a more union-friendly city than Atlanta. Some Democrats are fearful of Atlanta as a venue because Georgia is a constitutional carry state for firearms, which makes some feel unsafe.
On the other hand, Chicago has very strict gun laws but is a homicide capital, with 695 homicides in 2022, a drop from the 800 murders it had the year before but still leaving 2022 the fourth highest year for murders in the Windy City since 1999.
