An analysis by the liberal Sightline Institute shows that Alaskans who split their votes between Democrats and Republicans were most-often voters who chose Sen. Lisa Murkowski for Senate and Mary Peltola for House in 2022.
Under the newly adopted rules of open primaries and ranked-choice general elections, the Alaska Republican Party was stripped of its right to hold its own primary and determine its own candidate for the general election. Voters no longer pick a Republican or “Democrat+” ballot in the primary. All candidates are on the same ballot.
This new condition gives insight into the Murkowski voters in 2022, as Murkowski appeared on all of the top five most popular split-ticket combinations.
Murkowski’s voters who split their votes between parties also tended to pick Democrat Les Gara for governor.
A second combination was Murkowski for Senate, Peltola for House, and Democrat-collaborator liberal Bill Walker for governor. In both of these combinations, the voter also picked a Democrat for a state House and a state Senate seat.
Further down the list, a smaller number of voters picked Murkowski, Peltola, Gara, a Democrat for state Senate, and an independent for state House. About 1 percent made that combination.
The analysis proves what conservatives said would happen with open primaries — Democrats would cross over and keep Murkowski in power.
There were 19 candidates to choose from on the open-primary ballot fo Senate, eight of which were Republicans and four of which were Democrat. The Democrats received a total of 16,867 of the 192,542 votes cast:
Murkowski, Peltola are the common denominators. The Democrats ran a weak Democrat, Pat Chesbro to occupy the chair. Her assignment was to do nothing but go through the motions and look like she was running.
In 12% of all ballots in 2022’s primary, Murkowski and Peltola were voted on together, and either Gara or Walker were the pick for governor.
Murkowski owes her success to Democrats, something Republicans have pointed out since the open primary was brought into action by 2020’s Ballot Measure 2, an initiative of Outside dark money. Under the old system, there were two ballots — a Republican and an “everyone else” ballot for the primary. Murkowski wouldn’t have been saved, as she would have lost to Kelly Tshibaka in the primary. If Democrats had not crossed over, she would have been retired.
The Murkowski/Peltola combination showed up in 25,567 ballots in the primary in 2022.
Also that year, just 82 voters chose conservative Kelly Tshibaka for Senate along with Democrats Mary Peltola and Les Gara for House and governor. The Republican voters who crossed over were few and far between.
Murkowski, if she owes anyone besides her proponents of ranked-choice voting, owes Peltola; their fortunes are tied together. Murkowski also endorsed Peltola in 2022, and that endorsement still, apparently, stands, as she has stayed silent in the 2024 race, where there are two Republicans in the mix for Congress: Nancy Dahlstrom and Nick Begich. On the other hand, it’s likely that neither Begich nor Dahlstrom would court an endorsement from Murkowski.
