{"id":51,"date":"2026-10-28T20:35:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/?p=51"},"modified":"2026-10-28T20:35:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:35:01","slug":"media-missing-a-big-point-in-alaska-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/2026\/10\/28\/media-missing-a-big-point-in-alaska-senate-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Missing A Big Point In Alaska Senate Race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There have been some rather noteworthy recent developments in the Senate race up in Alaska. The Department of Justice filed a rather extraordinary lawsuit seeking to prevent the state from certifying the results of the election — eleven days before the election is going to be held<\/em>. And just today, the New York Times<\/em> released an exposé<\/em> that could land like a bombshell in the middle of the race. But in all the reporting about both of these developments, the mainstream media is either completely ignoring or barely bothering to mention a rather key aspect of the way Alaskans vote. By doing so, they hype their stories to make them sound more dire and momentous than they really are, which would seem to be a cardinal sin in journalism (at least, to me).<\/p>\n

It all boils down to stupid and\/or ignorant voters. Voters that would have to be stupid\/ignorant in two separate ways<\/em>, in fact. But we’ll get to all of that in a moment. First, let’s just review the basics of the race, for those who haven’t been paying attention.<\/p>\n

Incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, is being challenged for his seat by a Democrat, Mary Peltola, who has already previously won a state-wide race (for Alaska’s lone House seat). So she’s got a good chance of winning, especially in a year that favors Democrats. There will be four candidates on the ballot next week: the winners of Alaska’s top-four jungle primary. The other two candidates who will appear on the ballot are Gerald L. Heikes, who will be listed as a “Registered Republican,” and one candidate who will be listed without any party affiliation.<\/p>\n

It’s that last candidate who is causing all the fuss — and understandably so. Because Alaskans will see on their ballot the following two names (presented here exactly as they appear on the ballot): “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.<\/strong>“, and: “Sullivan, Dan S.<\/strong> (Registered Republican) Incumbent”. Obviously, this could cause some voter confusion. Except for the fact — the big sin of omission in almost every media report about this election fracas — that it really should not matter at all<\/em>. It just shouldn’t — because Alaska uses ranked-choice voting for its general elections. But again, I am getting ahead of myself. Before we get to why this shouldn’t matter at all, let’s take a look at the reasons this is all back in the news again.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department filed their extraordinary case in order to pre-empt a victory by Peltola. She’s very slightly ahead in the polls, but only by a thin margin (and polls in Alaska are notoriously hard to conduct and also notoriously inaccurate). The lawsuit seeks to bar Alaskan elections officials from certifying the election results only if Peltola wins<\/em>. That’s a rather large thumb on the scale, obviously. The contention is that voters will somehow be “confused” by the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, and thus votes which were meant for the incumbent senator might go to some obscure “spoiler” instead.<\/p>\n

But in order for this to happen, voters would have to be either stupid or ignorant in two separate ways<\/em>. They would have to be bamboozled by Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s name, selecting him rather than the guy who is clearly marked as “Incumbent.” And — the big one that everyone seems to be missing — the voters would have to be too stupid or ignorant to fully fill out their ballot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A side note: stupidity<\/em> can’t be fixed (it is an inherent lack of intelligence or reasoning power), but ignorance<\/em> can (by education). Which is why two things about this stick out to me. The first is that after an admittedly rather cursory browse through Senator Dan S. Sullivan’s campaign website, there doesn’t seem to be any concerted effort there to highlight any: “Here’s how to fill out your ballot to make sure your vote counts!” voter-education message (which is odd, because it truly could make this problem almost entirely disappear). And the second is the one I’ve already mentioned — there is little-to-no effort being made by the media to likewise educate the public about why this should really be a non-problem.<\/p>\n

Today brought the bombshell Times<\/em> report<\/a>. Republicans have been desperately searching for some sort of proof that this was all a dirty trick by the Democrats, but so far they have been unable to come up with any sort of proof of this. So the Times<\/em> went ahead and dug it out for them.<\/p>\n

The story alleges a cooperative effort between people working for the Peltola campaign and the national Democratic Party’s “Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee” (which exists to get Democrats elected to the Senate), using a political operative from Ohio to recruit spoiler candidates for the primaries. Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. was one of these. They also convinced a Democrat who had won one of the four general election ballot spots to drop out, to clear the field by only presenting a single Democrat on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

None of this is illegal, but it does fall into the category of political gamesmanship or dirty tricks (although we’re not convinced it would qualify as Nixonian-level “ratfucking”). Exposing it all a week before the election could indeed qualify as an “October surprise,” however.<\/p>\n

But even though the article is a long one — a very deep dive indeed — the words “ranked-choice” or “instant runoff” appear nowhere<\/em> in it. The casual reader is left with the impression that a vote for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. automatically means a vote that won’t go for Senator Dan S. Sullivan. And this is just not true at all<\/em>. It isn’t!<\/p>\n

The only time the Times<\/em> even gets close to bothering to mention the method Alaska uses to vote, it doesn’t even qualify as pointing the fact out “in passing” or “tangentially.” Instead, they completely obfuscate it. Twice, the phrase: “the state’s unusual four-person ballot” is used, but with absolutely no explanation whatsoever<\/em> about what makes it unusual. That, as I said, is journalistic malpractice.<\/p>\n

You know what would solve this problem almost completely? One ad placed in rotation on Alaska’s airwaves. Here’s what it should say:<\/p>\n

I’m Senator Dan Sullivan, and I am running for re-election. One of my opponents on the November ballot is also called Daniel Sullivan, which was done in an effort to confuse you and maybe make you throw your vote away. But thankfully there’s an easy way to avoid this — just vote for both<\/em> Sullivans! Put us both down as your number one and number two choices, and that way your vote will be guaranteed<\/em> to count. So remember, just to be sure your vote won’t be wasted, make sure you vote for both Sullivans as your number one and number two choices. Let’s beat them at their own game, Alaska! I am Dan S. Sullivan, I am the incumbent senator on the ballot, and I approved this message.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s really not that tough to figure out. Because the only way the whole “spoiler effect” scheme would even work is if the voters intending on voting for the incumbent were stupid\/ignorant in two separate ways<\/em>. They would have to get confused by the two Sullivans on the ballot and vote for the wrong one — and<\/em> they would have to refuse to fully fill out their ranked-choice ballot. If you only mark one candidate down (as your first and only choice) and that candidate doesn’t make it through the first round of vote-counting, then your vote becomes meaningless because it is not counted at all<\/em> in the second and\/or third round of vote-counting.<\/p>\n

So Sullivan should really be putting up some money to educate people of these facts. Because if he does, then he will solve the problem of any ignorant voters — by teaching them the right way to assure that he gets their vote.<\/p>\n

The news media is doing a big disservice as well, by not pointing this out. They are either ignorant of the system themselves (a possibility, with some political journalists), or they are trying to hype the storyline of the “spoiler effect” when it really should not exist<\/em>, due to the ranked-choice nature of the ballot.<\/p>\n

Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is just not<\/em> going to win the election next week. So if voters mark down both Sullivans as their top two choices, then it won’t even matter which one they mark as their first choice<\/em>. Their votes will go to the incumbent senator, in either the first or the second round of voting. If Peltola wins in the first round, then it would mean that it wouldn’t have mattered if they had voted for the right or wrong Sullivan because she would have beaten him either way (with a simple “one vote over 50 percent” majority). That’s the nature of the ranked-choice system. But if it goes to a second round, then all<\/em> the Sullivan votes will be counted together, if all the pro-incumbent voters do mark both of them down as first and second choice. Ta da! Problem solved!<\/p>\n

If the polling is right and this is a very close race, then the spoiler effect of having two similarly-named candidates on the ballot could come into play, in terms of who wins. But ranked-choice voting was designed to avoid situations like this, so if the voters mark their ballots intelligently, then it won’t be a problem at all. And the media should be pointing this out in every story they run about the election, even if it does tend to undercut their alarmist storyline.<\/p>\n

— Chris Weigant<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow Chris on Twitter: <\/em>@ChrisWeigant<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been some rather noteworthy recent developments in the Senate race up in Alaska. The Department of Justice filed a rather extraordinary lawsuit seeking to prevent the state from certifying the results of the election — eleven days before the election is going to be held. And just today, the New York Times released…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisweigant.com\/cw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}