This story has been updated to remove a reference to Sarah Palin’s in-laws holding a fundraiser the night before the election for Mary Peltola. The fundraiser was for Nick Begich III.
Mary Peltola was a 33-1 underdog in online betting markets just before the June primary in the U.S. House Special Election. Now Nick Begich III, the pundits’ pick then, is at the same 33-1 odds now.
“Is Nick Begich the Manchurian candidate?” asked Andrew Halcro, a former state lawmaker teasing his pundit podcast this week, a significant change in tone from most analysts who predicted Begich as the likely winner of the race.
But it may be an opportunity for savvy speculators to score big since Begich trails Sarah Palin by only a few points for second place, pundits in social and traditional media said he supposedly puts lots of effort into encouraging absentee ballots that are still coming in, and poll numbers suggest he is basically a shoo-in in a head-to-head match against Peltola.
That said, perhaps the odds make sense since among the proletariat punters there’s a 90%-plus chance (based on a Google New count) anyone getting their information strictly from national and global headlines believes Palin was the people’s choice on Tuesday.
“Sarah Palin advances to November election for Alaska’s U.S. House seat,” is essentially the headline being used by nearly all mainstream media (since it came from The Associated Press), with the articles generally focusing on her supposedly political comeback. Begich and Peltola often show up as “also advancing” afterthoughts — and attempts to distinguish the special election betting odds are based on and the November election often end up in a muddle.
A few headlines did start appearing a day or two later about Peltola actually being the candidate with the most votes (although there’s a very good chance that’s not the case for the special election come Aug. 31 when ranked choice tallying occurs). But they were mostly along the lines of “Who is Mary Peltola?” or, in the case of a YouTube video, “How To Pronounce Mary Peltola.”
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However things shake out in Alaska’s congressional races, one of the few certainties from a first-time election that continues to befuddle many is some of the top “expert” politicos are going to look very stupid with their predictions (although that’s not uncommon even in common elections).
The general consensus, for instance, is U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski will ultimately prevail under the new ranked choice voting system, even though challenger Kelly Tshibaka is more popular among Republicans, because Democrats and independents opting for a non-Republican as their first choice will overwhelmingly select the incumbent as their second choice.
But FiveThirtyEight, long considered the gold standard in predictive punditry, based on founder Nate Silver’s run of accurate election forecasts, is as of this week declaring Tshibaka has a 67% chance of winning compared to Murkowski’s 28% — and that’s with the incumbent beating the challenger among Republicans in the primary ballots counted so far. Meanwhile, the same betting sites putting Begich at 33-1 have Murkowski a 1-10 favorite (as in bet $1,000 to win $100) to win reelection.
FiveThirtyEight isn’t nearly as far-removed from conventional wisdom in the U.S. House race, but still might raise some eyebrows by forecasting Begich the favorite with a 46% chance of winning, Palin 40% and Peltola 14%. Their forecast in the governor’s race is downright dull in comparison with incumbent Republican Mike Dunleavy favored with a 68% chance, and Democrat Les Gara and Bill Walker split at 15% each,
One interesting additional note is the trend for the party likely to prevail in Alaska’s three biggest races has shifted little at both FiveThirtyEight and the Cook Political Report, despite Peltola’s current primary lead and vastly improved betting odds. The Cook Political Report rates the U.S. House race as Likely Republican, U.S. Senate as Safe Republican and governor as Likely Republican, all unchanged from a week (and many months) ago.
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No matter how strange the experts’ expectations about how who will get what votes with ranked choice voting, the strangest of all immediately after the seemingly came from the two leading U.S. House candidates themselves.
It started with an election night post by New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa, who declared “At Mary Peltola’s election night watch party at an Anchorage brewery, Peltola tells me that Sarah Palin texted her this morning to wish her well and warn her it was cold outside. The two have shared a warm relationship throughout the campaign, and Palin has said she would vote for Peltola.”
That possibility was puzzling since Palin was openly declaring she voted only for herself on the ranked choice ballot she’s been expressing rage about.
Peltola, in an interview the next day, said mundanely she never expressed the latter part of that post — it appears to be an appendage from a previous public utterance by Palin during the campaign. The former Alaska governor was considerably less mundane in her own social media message.
“Fake News: New York Times – would QUIT making things up?? When did I EVER say I’m voting democrat? I have a great relationship with my Democrat opponent, but this lying NYT reporter chick (whom I’ve not even spoken to!) is full of beans. So, NYT: fess up, retract, apologize…thought we ain’t holding our breath for NYT to ever do the right thing.”
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While attacks on ranked choice voting are understandable among voters and observers confused about the process and perhaps disappointed with the incomplete results so far, a lot of pros are wondering why Palin remains a chief critic since she may well be its first benefactor.
“Voters are confused and angry, and feel disenfranchised by this cockamamie system that makes it impossible to trust that your vote will even be counted the way you intended,” Palin said in a prepared statement after the primary. “We’ll keep fighting to equip Alaskans with the information they need to make sure their voices are heard amidst this Leftist-crafted system – no matter how hard the corrupt political establishment works to silence us.”
But as of now the pre-primary thought she’d lose to Peltola in a head-to-head instant runoff is no longer operative.
Pollster Ivan Moore, for instance, who was the most prominent voice in the Peltola-over-Palin in theory, says the Democrat likely need to win the first-choice votes by at least 10% and her current lead is only about 6%. And if Begich is hoping to stage a rally through absentee and then second-choice votes, circumstantial evidence suggests he may be disappointed.
“I’m hearing many Palin supporters are only voting for a single candidate and that doesn’t bode well for Begich if Sarah ends up third,” The Alaska Watchman, a conservative news site, wrote in a social media post.
A similar analysis was offered by Alaska Public Media’s Liz Ruskin in an analysis broadcast by KTOO.
“Ranked-choice voting was supposed to be for consensus candidates, and moderates, and instead, wouldn’t it be ironic if RCV is what brings us to Congresswoman Sarah Palin?” she said.
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Headlines from national and global media after Tuesday’s election:
■ “Palin advances in race for U.S. House seat” (The Hill)
■ “Sarah Palin advances to November election for Alaska’s U.S. House seat” (Axios)
■ “Sarah Palin Advances in Race for Alaska’s Only House Seat” (National Review)
■ “Alaska primary: Sarah Palin seeks comeback backed by Trump” (BBC)
■ “Sarah Palin trails in special election for Alaska House seat” (Washington Examiner)
■ “A new ranked-choice voting system hampers Sarah Palin’s hopes” (The Economist)
■ “Could Sarah Palin have cost the GOP a House seat?” (Washington Post)
■ “Alaska Native takes lead in US Congressional race” (Indian Country Today)
■ “Ranked-Choice Voting Makes a Joke of Alaska Politics: Santa Claus isn’t coming to Congress, but that’s the only good result from this electoral experiment.” (Wall Street Journal)
■ “Ranked Choice Voting Goes Smoothly in Alaska” – FairVote
■ “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Status as Most Ignorant Person in Congress at Stake in Alaska Election” (Borowitz Report)
• Contact reporter Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com.
