The Alaska RCV Follies Continue: Only One Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Remains

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) or, as a friend refers to it, "tanked choice voting," is performing in Alaska as intended: Muddying the waters and screwing up our 2026 election. The bad thing about all this is that Alaska Democrats seem to be working to their advantage in this cockamamie system rather better than Alaska Republicans. 

Look, for example, at two candidates in the Alaska gubernatorial race to replace the term-limited Governor Mike Dunleavy. Note that Alaska has had its jungle primary, and now the top four vote-getters in each race (including a Senate seat and our at-large House representative in addition to the governor's race) will advance to be on the general election's RCV ballot.

First, the lower-scoring Democrat candidate for governor, Tom Begich, seeing the writing on the wall, is withdrawing from the race and throwing his weight behind leading Democrat (and leading vote-getter as a whole) Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. In his position, that's the smart play.

Tom Begich, the Democratic former state lawmaker who finished second in Alaska’s crowded gubernatorial primary, said Friday that he is dropping out of the governor’s race and endorsing Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.

Begich was the first Democrat to enter the race and secured 20.8% of the primary vote, finishing second to Kreiss-Tomkins, his former colleague in the Legislature, who received 22.5% of the vote.

With Begich’s withdrawal, only one Democrat will appear on the November ballot, paving the way for Kreiss-Tomkins, the 37-year-old from Sitka, to consolidate Democratic support.

The #2 Republican, after businesswoman Bernadette Wilson, is Dave Bronson; he's staying in. That's not the smart play.

One day after The Alaska Story reported that Alaska gubernatorial candidate Dave Bronson signed a document back on May 28 saying he would withdraw his candidacy if he did not win a majority of votes in the primary, Bronson has definitively stated that he’s not “backing down.”

The Alaska Story article noted that as part of the Republican Party’s pre-primary vetting process, candidates seeking support from House District 8 were asked if they would drop out of the race if they did not win the majority of votes for a Republican in the primary.

At the time, Bronson signed off on that pledge, which is what fellow GOP candidate Bernadette Wilson also vowed to do in order to avoid splitting the conservative vote in the general election this November.

Now he clearly intends to split the conservative vote this November. There may indeed be as many as three Republicans on the November ballot. 

This is precisely the kind of outcome RCV was designed to produce. That's why it was so heavily supported by Democrats (and Senator Lisa Murkowski (?-AK) and why leftist organizations Outside dumped so much money into getting it passed and blocking any repeal efforts. A repeal initiative is on the ballot here again this year; we'll see.

There are two ways out of this for Alaska Republicans. 

First: The Alaska GOP needs to get its act together. There's an obvious front-runner here: Bernadette Wilson. She has been campaigning tirelessly across this vast, vast state and is clearly determined to fight it out. Good. The other candidates should drop out, get behind Bernadette Wilson, and win this thing.

Second: Play on the Left's ground. Every Alaska Republican and every Republican-leaning independent needs to, as the saying goes, rank the red. If three Republicans end up on the ballot, rank them in whatever order, but make sure you at least rank Republican candidates in first, second, and third places. I don't care if you don't particularly like one of them; if these ballots stand as they look like they will, this is the only shot we have at winning, at keeping a Republican in the governor's office, as we have had since 2002.

Candidates have until Monday, August 31st to drop out. Otherwise, they will be on the RCV ballot in November. The clock's ticking.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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