Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
We want to make sure to run several of these before the Tuesday after next. Today, it's an assessment of ranked-choice voting in Alaska, followed by some comments on the Senate race in Maine, and some responses to the previous Local Bytes:
P.F. in Fairbanks, AK: Ranked-choice voting has become a foundational issue in campaigns in Alaska, both local and statewide, and not necessarily because Ballot Measure 2 seeks its repeal (again...). Consider the ways some races are handling it:
U.S. Senate: Sen. Dan Sullivan(s) (R-AK), Mary Peltola (D) and some other guy (R, maybe?)
Gerald Heikes (R). Right. Honestly had to look up who the fourth person was. I just got a mailer today from Senator Dan S. Sullivan (R) letting me know that he is my "1st CHOICE and ONLY CHOICE." This is interesting to me, since this race is clearly between Sen. Sullivan and Mary Peltola, and it's unlikely both get eliminated. It makes me wonder why a statement on RCV is even necessary, given how political the system is right now.
U.S. House: Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK), Bill Hill (I), Eric Hafner (D) and... uh... some other person?
Right, Jim McDermott (L). Anyway, this one is very interesting because the Hill campaign is worried about Democrats skipping the (I) and voting for Hafner. Why shouldn't Democrats vote for the Democrat, you may ask? Well, for starters, he's in prison in New York. In 2024, the Alaska Democratic Party sued to have him removed from the ballot and lost at the Alaska Supreme Court. The concern is that too many (and by "too many," I mean "not very many but enough") Democrats will vote for Hafner and then exhaust their ballots. In this particular race, there is some irony that Hill supporters are likely RCV supporters, but RCV could be what does him in.
Governor: Bernadette Wilson (R), Dave Bronson (R), Treg Taylor (R), and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a.k.a. JKT (D)
Wilson has been calling on the Republicans to unite around her and for the other Republicans to drop out. To their credit, the other Republican candidates also agree that there should be only one Republican on the ballot. In this race, Republicans are panicking about RCV because the Republican campaigns have been denigrating each other and alienating their supporters. Add to that the fact that Bronson was not a popular mayor of Anchorage; that (former state AG) Treg Taylor was temporarily disqualified for the race due to a campaign finance scandal (and was only reinstated because his former boss, Gov. Mike Dunleavey, R, ordered his Lt. Governor to reinstate him); and Wilson has been endorsed by a not-necessarily-super-popular-anymore Donald Trump. JKT, on the other hand, has no intra-party competition. With conservatives already supporting the repeal of RCV, it's entirely likely that ballots for any of the three Republicans are exhausted at the second round. As a result, mailers are now coming out BEGGING people to "Rank the Red" to "Stop the Radical [California/Leftist/Liberal] agenda."
State House District 33: Rep. Mike Prax (R-North Pole), Barbara Haney (R), and Pepper McFarland (U)
(U) is Undeclared. This is the only race in the interior (and so the only one I'm familiar with) that has more than two people running, and the only one where two candidates of any same party are running against each other. As a side note, the other state House races in the interior feature mostly Republicans against Nonpartisans and Undeclareds. I mention this race to a national audience only because the Republicans in this race will not be voting for each other as Choice #2. The vehement opposition to RCV by Haney makes it unlikely her supporters will rank anyway. Because of this, District 33 may see a non-Republican for the first time since at least the 1970s.
I profile these for you because they demonstrate the various ways that ranked-choice voting is affecting races in Alaska. I know we aren't normally front-and-center, but this year we may help rebalance Congress. Our Senate and House seats are held by people who stick pretty close to Trump and can rarely be found around the state, and both seats are competitive. Our legislature has bucked conservative Republicans and formed D-I-R coalitions in both chambers, and with a Democratic governor there could be some serious paradigm shifts in our statewide politics.
For your other readers in Alaska, I say hang in there: Only a few more weeks before we can be done with the "Lower 48 Liberals" and the "Seattle Trawlers" ads. You know the ones I mean.
M.C. in Friendship, ME: In the first Maine U.S. Senate debate, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) bragged about getting an exception to Trump's no-Canadian-imports rule—for road salt (!) for the snowplows to scatter this winter. Troy Jackson responded, "What about all the other stuff? We can't eat road salt." It wasn't long before we got these:
P.R. in Saco, ME: The testy final debate between Logger Troy Jackson and Concerned Susan Collins led to his telling her to shut up, such that you wrote, "By Maine standards, that's a major throwdown." You nailed it.
After the debate, our local commentators did their best rendition of Trevor Noah's "White People Being Flabbergasted." While all of them are too experienced to have replicated the deer-in-headlights display by Katie Zacharia, they floundered until they found the thread to pull on: how tired we all are of the nasty, nasty, bad, ugly, negative ads leading up to this election. Was it any wonder, given how exhausted we all are by the ads, that the candidates (who clearly don't like each other) lose it when they poke at the other?
At this stage, is there a gender discrepancy between Joe Biden carping, "Will you shut up, man?" to his opponent, and Jackson telling a woman to shut up, such that the outcome will be affected? Who knows. Possibly; Many folks in the State of Maine are inured to the rule I grew up with: that "shut up" (and "stupid") count as swearing. Call us quaint if you like. Just, please, make it all stop! November 3 can't come soon enough.
M.S. in Portland, ME: I am making a prediction that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME wins the 2026 Maine U.S. Senate race by 5% or more. I am relatively new to Maine (3 years); however, I have followed Collins' political career since its inception. My prediction is based in some facts and some anecdotal observations.
Facts: Maine is a relatively small state, both in terms of population and geography, which means that in her decades in the Senate and running campaigns Susan Collins has touched a lot of Mainers, both literally and figuratively. She has pressed the flesh of many of her constituents at diners, town halls, and via door knocks. She has helped many small businesses over the decades, especially during the pandemic, and brought a lot of pork projects to Maine that have personally benefited many in this state. As noted recently by an Electoral-Vote.com reader in Deer Isle, Collins is an experienced campaigner with a robust ground and GOTV operation. Despite substantial polling to the contrary, Collins won re-election in 2020 by almost 9%. Conversely, Troy Jackson has never won a statewide election, represented only a small population of Mainers in his role as a state senator, and he lost the statewide Democratic primary for governor this year, coming in third in that race.
Anecdotal observations: Neither in his campaign for governor nor his nascent bid for the U.S. Senate has Troy Jackson or a surrogate knocked on my door, asked me about my voting plan, or invited me to an event. He seems to be running on the idea that not being Susan Collins is going to get him elected, which is a bad bet in Maine. To be clear, I am a Democrat and I voted for Jackson last week via in-person absentee voting. I hope to the Diety that he wins, but I am not feeling good about his chances. I would love to hear from my fellow Maine voters on their opinions and observations about the Jackson v. Collins race.
J.C. in Milwaukee, WI: First, I wanted to quickly address the point of J.R. in Deer Isle, from the Local Bytes. J.R.: It sounds like you are planning to vote Democratic even if you're "unenrolled," which means you're likely marked off in a database somewhere. Door knockers don't go door to door, they knock on very specific doors at very specific parts of the year. If you're being inundated with Collins canvassers and mailers, it's likely because they think you are a gettable vote ("persuadable," "undecided" etc); likewise, if the Jackson campaign isn't bothering you, it's probably because they have you down as a banked vote.
This means that your conclusion might be backwards: The GOP/affiliated groups wasting time and money on you means their data or coordination is actually not optimized. However, it's right around now that things start to shift to GOTV. If you're planning to vote on Election Day and you don't get someone calling or stopping by to make sure you vote, that would be mildly worrying—unless you vote in most/every election, and therefore are guaranteed to vote in this one.
Also, a dispatch for Wisconsin. Three billionaires have given tens of millions of dollars to the GOP here. The airwaves are flooded. I have knocked something like 2,500 doors here for a handful of candidates. Hundreds of hours beyond on lots of projects. While I feel pretty good about things, it's going to be a knife fight here until the very end.
We have a chance to get a trifecta, which will mean flipping the State Senate and State Assembly. If there are any readers interested in getting a lot of bang for their buck, I would encourage you to find some of the tossup State Assembly races here and donate! Every little bit helps even as we are being outspent everywhere.
V.L.B. in Murphysboro, IL: In response to S.G. in Vancouver: I understand your pain. You want, you need a Democratic representative in your district, but you're stuck with a choice between a Republican and what appears to be a Republican in Democrat's clothing in Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. And having read the linked NPR article, yes, voting for the SAVE act is particularly egregious, especially considering that the same day your letter was posted, someone else posted that the very Republican lieutenant governor of Utah went against her own very Republican Senator Mike Lee on the very same issue. SAVE, yes, I can see that as a deal breaker.
One, I'm glad I'm not faced with your decision. But...
Two, using Angela Paxton's own words against her, is it really in anybody's interest, especially yours, to let the seat fall back into Republican hands?
Either way, in 2 years, there will be another primary. There will be a chance to get a better Democrat onto the ticket. But in the meantime, do we want to give this seat away to the Republicans?
A.B. in Wendell, NC: Did I read that right?? OMG, I am gobsmacked that P.M. could be tired of Trumpism... perhaps there is hope!! I do not envy P.M., living in NC-01. If I lived there (I am in NC-02) I would have to leave the line blank because I'd never vote for Republican Laurie Buckhout (in fact, I say, when I see commercials about her: "Buckhout needs to get the **** out!") But I could not vote for the backstabbing Democrat Don Davis, either. And I actually do know him personally. He lost me when he threw trans people under the bus, in direct violation of the North Carolina Democratic Party's (NCDP) mission statement... and the NCDP lost me as a volunteer when they did nothing about Davis.
I once ran for state Senate, and I was once a precinct chair, 1st Vice Chair of the 2nd Congressional District Executive Committee, a member in good standing of the State Executive Council, served on the Platform and Resolutions Committee, was a member in good standing of the State Executive Committee, and Chair of the only Trans Caucus in the nation. NCDP lost all of that with me... and I shall give them neither my money nor time anymore, until they follow their own rules. I will continue to support Team Blue, and I will give time and such as I can afford money-wise to individual candidates I feel are worthy. Don Davis will not be one of them.
We should note that while P.M. in Edenton leans a bit right, we've never had the impression that P.M. is MAGA.
Any readers who have updates on local developments, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com, with subject line "Local Bytes." (Z)