Ranked-Choice Voting Could Come Back To Bite Alaska Republicans … Again

Ranked-Choice Voting Could Come Back To Bite Alaska Republicans … Again

By Suzanne Downing |

Rep. Mary Peltola continues to have support among left-leaning American politicos, after emerging victorious in Alaska’s messy open-primary, ranked-choice general voting system in 2022.

Conservative Alaska voters, faced with a contentious field last year, awarded Peltola enough second-place votes to lock in her win.

As a candidate with low name recognition, Peltola committed to bipartisanship, saying she drew inspiration from the late Congressman Don Young. However, her voting record since November has revealed a different story.

Peltola’s support for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as House speaker, casting 15 votes in his favor, was the first big item that raised eyebrows around the 49th state.

She voted against the Strategic Production Response Act and justified her absence during the final vote by claiming she was unaware voting was about to occur.

Peltola voted against the censure of Rep. Adam Schiff, who was the unethical impeachment manager for Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the now-discredited “Russia collusion” attack on former President Donald Trump.

Recently, she joined most Democrats in opposing the National Defense Authorization Act. The rationale behind her “no” vote lies in her desire for culture-war earmarks to fund military transgender treatments and surgeries, as well as paying military women a month of leave for late-term abortions. Peltola has also supported transgender males’ participation in female athletic competitions.

She voted against H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights, and has been advocating for a national railroad strike, urging Starbucks baristas to unionize, and encouraging pizza workers in Alaska to do the same.

Peltola’s consistent absence is notable: She has missed 16 times more votes than the median Democrat House member. In a House with 435 members, she is number 12 for most missed votes.

While she participated in the women’s Congressional Softball game against journalists, she failed to show up for work the next day when almost all amendments to the National Defense Appropriations Act were voted on. Her inability to get out of bed deprives Alaskans of a voice in the House.

When she does vote, Peltola votes in line with Rep. Nancy Pelosi 84% of the time, Rep. Ilhan Omar 77%, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 78%. Keep in mind that 53 percent of Alaskans voted for Trump.

Nick Begich, a lifelong Republican who ran for Congress in 2022, has seen enough. He decided to run again after witnessing Peltola repeatedly vote against Alaska’s values.

Although he faces the challenge of overcoming his relatives, who include well-known Democrats, Begich enjoys the continued support of his followers.

But Alaska’s unique method of selecting representatives, introduced with Ballot Measure 2 in 2020, deviates from the rest of the nation. It’s a tangled mess.

The open primary format eliminated the Republican Party of Alaska’s ability to independently choose its candidate for the general election.

Instead, all candidates, whether clowns or statesmen, participate in the same primary ballot. In 2022, this resulted in a massive ballot with 48 candidates.

The top four vote getters from the primary advance to the general election, where voters are then asked to rank the candidates in order of preference. If a voter’s preferred candidate loses, their vote is transferred to their next choice, granting them an opportunity to vote again. In this scheme, some voters get to vote more than once, while others’ votes are counted just one time.

Given the array of choices Alaskan voters had in November, which included three conservatives and one liberal candidate selected in the primary, it remains perplexing how a radical like Peltola emerged victorious.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting had promised that the system would eliminate extremists, but this is not how it worked in real life. Alaskans ended up with a de facto member of The Squad.

Will it happen again?

Begich begins his campaign with a solid base of one quarter of the likely vote this time around. However, with less than a year remaining until the primary ballot is set in Alaska, a lot can happen with campaign hijinks, as we saw in 2022.

Last year, Begich garnered support from major conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works for America, as well as the endorsement of the Alaska Republican Party.

And yet, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is not structured to work well with the ranked-choice voting system, which in a state like Alaska all but guarantees the presence of multiple Republicans on a general election ballot.

This time around, the NRCC can and should focus on highlighting Peltola’s extreme positions to ensure that Alaskans can make a more informed decision in the upcoming 2024 primary and general elections.

For now, Alaskans are represented by a bait-and-switcher who holds some of the most mind-boggling positions in the history of the U.S. Congress. Alaska has the distinction of being the most conservative district in the country to be represented by a Democrat. We can do better.

National organizations like the NRCC, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and Club for Growth will be crucial in helping prevent a recurrence of 2022’s series of unfortunate events.

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Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Suzanne Downing is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and publisher of Must Read Alaska.

They’re Coming For Your Children

They’re Coming For Your Children

By Suzanne Downing |

From the South Lawn of the White House to the pulsing heartbeats of North America’s bustling metropolises, Democrats are stepping into the 2024 electoral fray armed with a transgender-dominated platform that makes the riots of 2020 look like a block party.

This time, the spotlight is focused on the very future of the country: our children.

In a repudiation of the family as the foundation of society, the Democrat platform contends, “Your children are not your children.” And it doesn’t stop there. The Democrats are loud and proud that they’re “coming for your children.”

This was echoed by President Biden himself in April when he proclaimed at a White House event, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.”

His sentiment was further reinforced by the LGBTQ activists during their Pride Month celebrations. The rallying cry of “We’re here. We’re queer. We’re coming for your children!” may have escaped the notice of those consuming mainstream media, but as Tucker Carlson has demonstrated, the traditional news platforms no longer control the narrative.

America is turning to Twitter for an unfiltered snapshot of reality, and reality is not pretty. The videos of the LGBTQ agenda are being shared, as citizen journalists take over telling a truth that legacy media won’t touch.

One could write off a single declaration of seizing the children as a mere slip of the tongue, but the unwavering commitment of the progressives suggests deliberate intent to make it a bedrock principle woven into the very fabric of the Democratic Party.

The party finds itself flanked by a president whose mental acuity is questionable at best and demonstrators whose behaviors set a new standard for raunch. By raunch, I refer to the naked men dangling their parts at children along the Pride parade route, and naked women in heavy makeout sessions in a public fountain, while children played nearby.

These individuals are the ones taking over our schools, libraries, parks, and city councils.

Even a top cabinet official – Rachel Levine, the Secretary of Health and Human Services – has officially declared that it’s not just Pride Month but Pride Summer.

Levine, a transgender individual, is determined to see the Democratic Party transgender platform permeate the cultural fabric of America. Levine’s aim is to dismantle the traditional family unit and supplant it with the state, utilizing the powers of the DHHS to cement this agenda ahead of the 2024 elections.

Democrats like Levine appear to be drawing from the Marxist ideology of Frederick Engels and Karl Marx, who famously critiqued the family and foresaw its inevitable demise.

Engels said “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.”

Thus, he predicted, the family “will vanish as a matter of course.”

His colleague Marx explained how that would be achieved: “The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.”

The American middle class, with its inherent kindness and compassion, has proven to be fertile ground for this Democrat redefinition of “love,” which amounts to actual hatred of the nuclear family.

Leveraging the tolerance of centrists, the Left has weaponized the Christian principle of “What Would Jesus Do” to quell debate and sway major Christian denominations to their cause. It has worked with many mainstream Christians, who haven’t found a good response to that rhetorical question.

The platform for 2024 looks set to feature a triumvirate of transgender dominance, the sexualization of children, and a critique of the traditional family. Why this direction? Because the Democratic Party, now under the influence of its most radical elements, finds itself incapable of reining in its fringe. The genie cannot be returned to the bottle.

Parents, brace yourselves: They are coming for your children. Alphabet agencies and unions like the National Education Association, and even the State of California, have made it clear and are leading the charge.

California Republican State Sen. Scott Wilk issued a warning: A new bill that would criminalize parents who don’t affirm their child’s “gender transition” is a bridge too far. It’s time for parents to run for the border.

“If you love your children, you need to flee California,” he said.

Democrats, seemingly emboldened by favorable polling in the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, are confident they have the winning issues for 2024.

For much of America, however, Democrats have simply packed the powder keg, stretched out the fuse, and are holding a match aloft.

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Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Suzanne Downing is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and publisher of Must Read Alaska.