If you want a masterclass in how establishment forces rig elections, look no further than the U.S. Senate primary race currently unfolding in Alaska. As vote counts trickle in, Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan surprisingly trails Democrat Mary Peltola by about 5 points.
While some 30,000 votes remain uncounted, the grim reality for the November general election is already set, courtesy of Alaska's deeply flawed and utterly undemocratic ranked-choice voting (RCV) regime. In Alaska, RCV serves one primary, sinister purpose: to prevent conservative Republicans from winning statewide office and to keep the compromised Sen. Lisa Murkowski firmly entrenched in Washington.
Full disclosure, from an Alaskan who grew up and lives in this magnificent state: while immense pride swells for America’s majestic northern frontier, our voting system is nothing short of an embarrassment, a blight on true democratic principles.
Ranked-choice voting, or RCV, didn't replace our party primary system with anything better; it substituted it with an open or "jungle primary" where any resident can toss their hat in the ring. But the real problem comes in the general election, where the top four candidates advance, forcing voters to rank their preferences rather than simply pick a single candidate. This disastrous setup often pits multiple strong conservative voices against each other, effectively guaranteeing a victory for the single Democrat.
And, of course, that's precisely how Mary Peltola stole a victory in 2022. Running in a special election to fill the seat of the late Republican Rep. Don Young, who had served Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat for 49 years, the Republican vote was strategically split between Sarah Palin and Nick Begich (now a member of the House). Peltola, a Democrat, then "eked out" a win in the so-called "second round" of vote-counting. A perfect example of a system designed to divide and conquer conservative voters.
RCV has delivered even more outlandish, head-scratching outcomes for Alaska. Consider the spectacle when a convicted felon serving a 20-year prison sentence in New Jersey was, unbelievably, allowed to appear on the November 2024 ballot because he managed to finish sixth in the open primary. This isn't democracy; it's a circus designed to disenfranchise real voters.
This election cycle has spiraled beyond mere embarrassment into what can only be described as outright rigging, manifesting as the "Decoy Dan" spectacle. A retired teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan, a man with no prior political experience and who only registered as a Republican two days before filing his candidate declaration, somehow secured 2.4 percent of the vote. This inexplicable third-place finish guarantees him a spot on the general election ballot.
This "Decoy Dan" is no accident; he is a transparent fraud, propped up by Democrat Party operatives and their dark money networks. As The New York Times, of all places, recently reported, veteran Democrat consultant Amber Lee has been actively assisting this fake Sullivan in his cynical bid to trick Alaskan voters into casting their ballots for the wrong candidate. Make no mistake, the entire purpose of this man's candidacy is to siphon votes away from the genuine Sen. Sullivan by deliberately confusing voters. He even initially attempted to register with the Alaska Division of Elections as "Dan S. Sullivan," adopting the incumbent's middle initial to make the names appear identical on the ballot. He then created a website strikingly similar in format and color scheme to Sen. Sullivan's legitimate reelection site. It's a blatant, low-IQ attempt at voter manipulation.
All of this blatant deception is enabled, even incentivized, by RCV. In plain terms, it's a system that allows Democrats to cheat—and in the most crude, transparent manner imaginable. There is a very real, and infuriating, chance that this fake candidate, who filed his candidacy in bad faith for the explicit purpose of deceiving voters and who should never have been allowed on the ballot, will garner just enough votes in the general election to hand victory to Peltola.
This is precisely the playbook Democrats and their RINO allies in Alaska use to maintain control of the state’s infamously corrupt politics. How did RCV even infest Alaska in the first place? It was passed in a statewide referendum by a narrow majority in 2020 after an exorbitant pro-RCV campaign, funded almost entirely by out-of-state globalist money. The bitter irony? This $15-million campaign, an astronomical sum in Alaska politics, shamelessly framed RCV as a way to get "dark money" out of state politics. They outspent homegrown opposition by a shocking 12 to one. Apparently, common sense needed a permission slip.
An effort to repeal RCV in 2024 tragically failed by a mere 743 votes. Why did it fail? Because once again, the pro-RCV establishment side vastly outspent the repeal effort, raising more than $12 million compared to the paltry $120,000 for those fighting for true election integrity. And somehow, they still expect Americans not to notice.
The impetus behind this wholesale switch to an RCV system? To ensure that the deeply unpopular Sen. Murkowski would never again have to face a Republican primary opponent. If she were to ever face a genuine GOP primary, she would almost certainly lose. She learned that painful lesson in the 2010 state GOP primary when she was soundly defeated by Tea Party conservative Joe Miller, a clear sign that Alaska Republicans recognized her as a liberal member of the Washington establishment. In response, she launched a shady write-in campaign in the general election that November, winning largely because her last name carried weight; her father, Frank Murkowski, served in the U.S. Senate for 21 years and, in a classic act of political nepotism, appointed her to his seat when he resigned to become governor.
The entire RCV system was a cynical concoction by Sen. Murkowski’s own staffers to shield her from accountability in the 2022 GOP primary. As Theo Wold pointed out this week, "Her former campaign staffer, Scott Kendall, wrote the ballot initiative to create RCV, and her former Chief of Staff left his perch in DC to run the RCV campaign when it passed in 2020. RCV in Alaska exists so Murkowski can be unbeatable in a Red State while governing as a Democrat who likes oil." And there it is. The mask is off.
Now that Alaska is saddled with RCV, thanks to Murkowski’s death-grip on power and the establishment's manipulation, we're not just stuck with her in the Senate. We now face the very real threat of a Sen. Peltola, thanks to this crude "decoy" scheme to confuse voters with a candidate sharing the same name as Sen. Sullivan.
It is all so transparently corrupt, so insultingly obvious, it’s hard to fathom it’s happening in America. But this is Alaska, where a culture of murky politics has long been the norm. The only hope of ever reestablishing anything resembling free and fair elections here is to permanently dismantle RCV. Elon Musk's reported $1 million donation toward a repeal effort is a welcome boost, but if history is any guide, the state will soon be flooded with tens of millions in outside globalist money between now and November, all aimed at keeping this fraudulent RCV scheme firmly in place.
And we all know why. It's not about improving elections; it's about controlling them, stifling the America First voice, and ensuring the establishment maintains its iron grip on power, no matter the cost to genuine democracy or the will of the people.
