Peltola campaign tied to push to scrap Alaska ranked choice vote
Breathless headlines about Democratic dirty tricks “swinging” the Alaska Senate race are going to drive me insane. Ranked-choice voting makes it *functionally impossible* for Other Dan Sullivan to make a difference. It’s like warning that an oncoming rainstorm will soak you when you are inside.
Jay Willis641Instead of reading about the latest GOP official to issue vague threats, read the quotes from Alaska voters, whose reactions boil down to “yeah we figured,” “that sucks but whatever,” “I wish the media would cover the issues instead,” and “do you think we’re stupid”
Our enemies want us dead38Do they think it should be illegal for someone named Dan Sullivan to run for office when someone else with that name is the incumbent? Are politicians going to need "politician names" the way actors have stage names?
Wrycke28Right, in order for this to work you have to believe that a decisive number of AK voters both (1) pick the wrong one of the Dans Stevens, and (2) don't know how to rank their choices from 1-4. I.e., this only matters if the final result is at Bush-Gore FL 2000-level closeness
Gregg Levine26Yes. I keep saying this, too. But the problem starts with the original NYT story, which made no effort to explain that. Remarkably bad reporting and/or editing.
Dawn Alene14Facts don’t matter to them
Erik, of Portland, but Scary for Halloween14Straight-ticket Republican voters who don't know what the word "incumbent" means might vote... 1. Alternative Dan Sullivan 2. Senator Dan Sullivan 3. No one ...and this helps Peltola not at all. They're fine.
ryan cooper836THANK YOU for writing this up. this "plot" straight up makes no sense, Peltola could not win via the Dans Strategem unless some of their voters ranked her above the other Dan
Jennifer Shin - WTAF274They don't care, they're throwing everything they can to create chaos and stir up distrust so they can steal the election in plain sight; the cult will eat it up.
David Waldman30“Spoiler candidate situations suck! We should figure out a way to eliminate their ability to contaminate election results.” “There IS a way. It’s called Ranked Choice Voting, and it basically lets you cast a back-up vote just in case.” “Great! Let’s use it! Wait! No! Not like that! FRAAAAUUUD!”
Bikepedantic29Seriously just vote for both Dans Sullivan, problem solved
Lane Stellmaker23Any mention of "dirty tricks of Democrats" that does not immediately rejoin with the false mailers sent to Texas parents by an anonymous Wyoming LLC claiming to be another group, and whose identity is being improperly shielded by the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, should be laughed at.
Jjinandtonic18Love how we do a rinse repeat cycle of -people get mad about nyt editorial slanting stories -journalist comes out of the woodwork to say no actually its breaking news you dont get it the public must know -people defend the honor of the nyt -actual reporting shows editorial framing was slanted
River_Tam10I mean no this isn't true. This is only true if people always rank both Dans Sullivan and rank them together.
David Waldman10It’d be great if election night TV coverage carefully reported the results of each ROUND of tabulations, so that everybody could see what happens as it happens. In addition to mewling about the Sullivans, anticipate “fraud” claims when the tally of votes falls short of the number of ballots cast.
Matthew Gillikin9I’d love to hear from the voter who wanted to rank incumbent Dan Sullivan first, got confused and ranked non-incumbent Dan Sullivan first, Peltola second, and incumbent Dan Sullivan third. Because that’s the only way of voting where the two Dan situation materially impacts the outcome of the race.
Nathan Newman7Keep emphasizing this - ranked choice voting STOPS ratfucking third party candidates from messing with elections. Media has been pathetically terrible in explaining this basic factual point.
It takes halfway through the article for them to acknowledge that this makes no sense, since RCV means that confused voters who put the wrong Sullivan in position 1 will still end up voting for the correct Sullivan in position 2. www.nytimes.com/2026/11/01/u...
Betsy Cazden45The reverse of their headline seems truer: the AK experience shows why RCV makes "spoiler" candidacies much less likely to swing an election. I'm fervently hoping for a resounding Peltola win, ideally over 50% on the first round. (I'm more worried by closing polling sites in Native areas.)
Adam Kinzinger: Endless outrage over 2 Dan Sullivans—a political trick we’ve seen before and knew about a year ago. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration paid nearly $500 MILLION for a Minnesota prison the state says it was offered for $75 million. The seller donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
Michael Kaplan 14the degree of willful ignorance and deceptive framing for this whole narrative is just astonishing from a serious news organization. it's Judith Miller-level bad journalism
FREEBROOKLYN❌👑13They ran this *today*?! Gah, give it a rest NYT. We need to create some Shadow Pulitzer - an award for the most nothing burger, served daily - to give to the paper for their work on this topic.
Alan Beattie12Not that the entire controversy isn't flammed-up gibberish, but might voters not just vote for one Sullivan and leave the rest of the ballot paper blank? Or put the real Sullivan last thinking they're the spoiler Sullivan? Do we know how many Alaska voters actually rank all the candidates?
Marty Olliff8GOP and NYT: “Gotcha” fantasies are all they have left.
🗽LOLGOP🗽197When the Times does this, obsesses on a trivial foible of the left, you really see the massive resources they could put into Trump's corruption. Do they cover it? Yes, do they go at it like it's the biggest story of our lifetime. Ha.
Tim Price99The Dan Sullivan Double Down is the perfect scandal because no one can explain what the problem is or how it actually affects anything; it’s just very upsetting to them
Robin Wilde3This is going to look even stupider when she either wins or loses by more votes than go to the "wrong" Sullivan.
howl seixas2i love the genre of blue check NYT readers having their liver eaten by the NYT eagle every day and being surprised anew that their corporate propaganda wasn't entirely accurate
Alex G. Howard2The problem is not adopting more complex voting systems than FPTP, b/c the end voting experience is largely simple. The problem is punditry pretending like any complexity, any strategy applied, is some horrific failure of an untested and unproven system that just happens to work elsewhere
The Times is straight-up boasting about how it has pushed a false premise so aggressively that people are helpless to debunk it with the facts
Tom Scocca284Ranked-choice voting is the system that now spares Alaska voters from the risk of throwing their votes away despite the state’s tradition of ballot-stacking chicanery
En Buen Ora71Ha ha those losers in the "awkward position" of saying true things and not bullshit! We got 'em!
R. Scott Rogers46Also the advantage of RCV in this scenario is a mathematical fact. It’s a 1+1=2 empirical reality. If you’re somehow confused about which Dan to vote for, rank one Dan first, the other Dan second, and you’re golden. If you picked the wrong Dan first, your vote still goes to the right Dan.
Death Becomes Her superfan27Is it me or is the premise here one eighty backwards? No one says that attempts at chicanery don’t happen under ranked choice; they just don’t matter as much to the final tally. In fact, this seems like a case study for when RCV works.
🕸️ Cobweb Curtains For Zoosha 🦇22The Times stating that ranked-choice voting needs a rationale from its defenders is vile. It's straight-up disinformation about something that is absolutely fine & they didn't have a problem with it when it gave Eric Adams the keys to City Hall.
Sports Robot21It’s such a bizarre article. The proponents of RCV are objectively correct that RCV basically solves the problem
Amadi Lovelace17I don't know why any of us gives the Times the attention we give them because they have been, for decades at this point, a consistent source of mis- and disinformation as regularly, if not more so, then actual actionable information. They're coasting on a reputation that is long dead. 
Conor8It's so funny how they are pretending to be big stupid Babies who can't handle the simple concept of ranked choice voting
Dr. Alexander3When reporters knowingly and willingly lie to their readers, they discredit the larger institution they work for. It’s clear though this sort of behavior is encouraged at the NYT.
Steve BOOSwood2Really don’t understand how all the vote blue no matter who liberals haven’t canceled their subscriptions. They’re literally the only subscriber base besides pundits themselves.
KR2Again, NY AG and Congessional Dems should turn the screws on the NYTimes political desk. Destroy these sneering assholes' lives.
EagleBeaverMan2I am not kidding, the New York Times is making itself into the party paper of global fascism. It is knowingly, willingly and actively manufacturing the false pretext republicans will use to try to overturn the midterms. They are active participants in the further degradation of American democracy.
Jon Danziger2We spoke to voters in an Alaska diner, and all their Senate ballots were identical: 1. Dan Sullivan 2. Mary Peltola 3. Dan Sullivan
The whole Sullivan-vs-Sullivan brouhaha is a fake scandal - and one that Alaska law already addresses, through ranked-choice voting. My dive into how reform addresses shenanigans - and why the real problem is election interference from Washington. samwang.substack.com/p/baked-alaska
swampsparrow.bsky.social7How could there be any confusion when one of the Sullivans is clearly identified as a Republican and the incumbent?
Sean Murphy2Star voting comes even closer to preventing election engineering problems like this. With the additional benefit of only one round of voting required.
Texas Krusty2NY Times and fake GOP scandal go hand in hand. It is their raison d’être.
profsjw.bsky.social1I would add, Election interference from the New York Times. It was deliberate and it's been going on for close to a week.
Fake or false flag candidates are not a new thing and are not illegal. Outrage is what drives R voters.
It's not proportionality. Ratfucking like this goes on all the time and it is NOT front page news in the NYT. Furthermore, because of ranked-choice voting in Alaska, it is almost impossible for it to have an impact there, and their article NEVER made that point.
Dean Baker44Not front page in the NYT electionlawblog.org/2026/the-con...
Mike the Mad Biologist and Cheesecake Factory Insulter18And this can’t continue either: bsky.app/profile/mike...
Rich Fox9Jill Stein was a Trump Ratfuck Operation. During the 2024 presidential election cycle, Jill Stein’s campaign received both direct legal and operations assistance from Republican operatives, while separate right-wing groups funded independent efforts to boost her candidacy.
Michael Wolfe2Republicans funded another Democrat to be on the ballot against her for governor. He was sitting in a NY prison. The media feels obligated to cover the hell out of this because they’re so sensitive to Republicans calling them biased.
Holli Winters2My prediction is that this "story" will be the number one topic on Sunday morning shows tomorrow. 🙄
WhatAimeeWrites1Hey @nytimes.com what happened in Alaska is not illegal. And it happens in elections all over the country. All the f****** time. For example, someone bankrolls Jill Stein every 4 years to suck votes away from the Democrats.
Ranked-choice voting actually makes the double-Sullivan ploy ineffective. If anyone is confused, they vote for both. And unless Peltola gets over 50%, they get combined. So why run this deceptive article? Guess.
AnneC2They are putting their thumb on the scale. And then ran that one Trump story today, days into bashing Peltola for the legal ballot in Alaska, on his diminishing coherence to say "see, we both-sides all of it." They also concurrently ran a laudatory story onTrump's lavish Halloween party.
unhandyandy.bsky.social1True in theory, but let's face it, people are both dumb and lazy. But this is about equally likely to hurt Peltola.
And Alaska has ranked choice voting. If you, a voter, missed all evidence of who the incumbent Dan Sullivan was, you could rank one first and the other second.
