A new political survey by pollster Ivan Moore shows that Alaska’s new ranked choice voting scheme would help U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski retain her seat, and would boost U.S. House candidate Nick Begich to victory. It also indicates that Gov. Mike Dunleavy would win re-election with a slim majority.
The survey of 1,201 likely Alaskan voters was conducted July 2-5, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%.
The poll looks at two elections – the Aug. 16 special election to select a temporary replacement to serve out the remaining months of the late U.S. Representative Don Young’s term, and the Nov. 8 general election in which Alaskans will choose a full-term replacement for Young, as well as vote for governor and a U.S. Senate seat.
In the special primary to choose a temporary replacement for Young, the survey shows that Nick Begich would beat out Sarah Palin and Mary Peltola to win in the ranked choice voting paradigm.
The findings for the Nov. 8 regular general election assume that the candidates listed below would be the top vote getters in the Aug. 16 regular primary, and would advance to the Nov. 8 election.
The poll shows that a large percentage of voters have never even heard of many candidates. This includes U.S. House Candidates Mary Peltola (30.7%) and Dustin Darden (49.6%), gubernatorial candidates Charlie Pierce (52.5%) and Les Gara (25.8%), and U.S. Senate candidates Pat Chesbro and Kelly Tshibaka (19.6%).
As these candidates continue campaigning, their name recognition will likely grow, which could substantially alter polling results. Likewise, the survey was done prior to former President Donald Trump’s massive July 9 rally in Anchorage, where he enthusiastically endorsed Palin for the U.S. House and Tshibaka for U.S. Senate, while also briefly asking Alaskans to re-elect Dunleavy.
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In early July, the most famous candidates were Palin, Dunleavy, Begich, Murkowski and former Governor Bill Walker.
One glaring omission from the polling data was gubernatorial candidate and current State Rep. Christopher Kurka. His name was not even included in the survey.
Ranked choice voting works by eliminating the candidate with the least number of votes after each round. The eliminated candidate’s second ranked choices are then redistributed to the remaining candidates. This process continues until one candidate breaks the 50% mark and wins.
With these considerable caveats in mind, here are the results of Moore’s survey with respect to the Nov. 8 general election:
U.S. CONGRESS
Round 1
— Mary Peltola – 37.5%
— Nick Begich – 27.2%
— Sarah Palin – 26.9%
— Tara Sweeny – 8.4% (Sweeny eliminated)
Round 2
— Mary Peltola – 40.6%
— Nick Begich – 30.6%
— Sarah Palin – 28.8% (Palin eliminated)
Round 3
— Begich – 56% (WINNER)
— Mary Peltola – 44%
U.S. SENATE
Round 1
— Kelly Tshibaka – 42.6%
— Lisa Murkowski – 35.3%
— Patricia Chesbro – 17.4%
— Dustin Darden – 4.6% (Darden eliminated)
Round 2
— Kelly Tshibaka – 44.7%
— Lisa Murkowski – 35.7%
— Patricia Chesbro – 19.6% (Chesbro eliminated)
Round 3
— Lisa Murkowski – 52.2% (WINNER)
— Kelly Tshibaka – 47.8%
GOVERNOR
Round 1
— Mike Dunleavy & Nancy Dahlstrom – 43.5%
— Les Gara & Jessica Cook – 25.8%
— Bill Walker & Heidi Drygas – 20.3%
— Charlie Pierce & Edie Grunwald – 10.5% (Peirce/Grunwald eliminated)
Round 2
— Dunleavy/Dahlstrom – 50.9% (WINNER)
— Gara/Cook – 26.4%
— Walker/Drygas – 22.7%
Click here to read the full survey results.
14 Comments
Looks like some I want and some I don’t will win. Let’s all get out and vote!
Looks like it will be the CLUSTERF@#% that was somehow passed as more votes were counted in favor of Ballot Measure 2 than were cast for Biden & Trump combined in November 2020…. Hmm Nothing to see here folks….. There must be some way to fight back against the RCV system. I have heard of people saying they will vote their Number One choice as First, Second & Third options to avoid the possibility of the ballot being tampered with…. If their First choice is not the winner, then their second & third choices don’t matter. Doing this instead of voting for and ranking a candidate they don’t want will mean that if their first choice is eliminated then their second choice would not go to somebody they don’t want. Lets say 100,000 votes are cast for the congress seat and Sarah gets 45,000 , Nick gets 35,000 and Mary gets 20,000 …. No clear winner, so Mary’s second choices are counted….. If they all voted only for Mary and didn’t want either Sarah or Nick, then Sarah wins with 45,000 Vs Nick 35,000 or 56% of the vote….. in the event more people place Nick as Mary’s second choice then Nick could end up with 15,000 of Mary’s 2nd choices Vs 5,000 for Sarah…. this would mean Nick & Sarah would have a tie at 50,000 votes each…. a Dead Heat ! What a screwed up system this really is…. Did Alaska really cast more votes in favor of BM# 2, or was it simply “engineered” ????? If I have made an error or failed to grasp the RCV system then I welcome comments and corrections…. After all the SOA explanation of BM#2 only took 26 pages to explain it concisely for the electorate…
When a system is so subject to corruption, scrutiny, and questioned as much as RCV is, it’s time to take a stand for election integrity.
I have always said that this ridiculous ranked-choice voting scam was nothing more than a Murkowski reelection ploy. This polling confirms it. Lisa may get her reelection, but I predict that ranked-choice voting is going to so upset Alaskan voters that it will go the way of the Dodo.
pollster Ivan Moore Is a joke.
Rank choice voting is cheating.
After this election we need to have the legislators in Juneau stop this cheating system
One vote in person with ID
Why was my comment censored ?
If it isn’t a Trafalgar Group poll, it is worthless. Only poll that has been accurate for the past decade. All others have been way off. Please stop making news stories on these worthless garbage polls.
It looks rigged, so I can only assume it is?
Follow the money. Lisa has lots of support, unfortunately, its coming from DC, California, Oregon, Washington, etc. All swamp land. That money given to Lisa then found its way to none other than the fraud radio talk show goon know it all, Mike Pacarro!!! If the polls are accurate, then we will know that pacarro was involved in a scheme to get his “ friend’s “ dunleavy and Lisa re-elected.
Simply follow the money, and you will find it was pacarro’s advertising company that got us RCV!!!!
RCV, is the most ridiculous concept to ever come along. When we had voter ID, when we had written ballots. when we had no computers controlling the outcome of elections, we had the closest thing to perfection possible. Time to turn the clock back, we didn’t to fix something that wasn’t broke!
I have never seen an Ivan Moore poll that is even remotely accurate. His samples are always tilted Left, usually by about 10 points, designed to shape public opinion, not reflect it.
A vote for Murky can’t be recorded if you just don’t vote for her. You don’t have to rank anyone. You can just vote for the first choice only. I will never support Murkowski. If it’s not Tsibaka it may as well be a Democrat.
Have you ever heard of Lisa complaining about the detention of the Jan 6th prisoner, I haven’t. She could care less about the injustice towards her fellow Americans. Lisa is all about Lisa!
This cockamamie system purporting to promote majority outcomes did not pass by a majority of the voters who voted in that election!