In 2020 the voters of Alaska allowed themselves to be bamboozled by a slick advertising campaign bankrolled by tons of out-of-state liberal money, and approved Rigged Choice Voting (RCV) by the margin of 50.5% to 49.5%; it took effect with the 2022 elections. Under RCV as it is still being used in Alaska in 2024, all candidates for an office run together on a single primary ballot, with the top 4 -- regardless of party -- advancing to the general election ballot. If no candidate gets over 50% on the "first" ballot in November, votes are shuffled around and many voters are disenfranchised, and then the Democrat (or ultra-liberal Republican) wins. At least that's how it works in practice.

The primary goal of RCV is to marginalize conservative candidates and prevent them from winning an election, and RCV therefore attempts to force Republicans to move drastically to the left in order to have any chance. Mendacious proponents of RCV claim that the same thing theoretically happens on the other side too -- with radical leftists being forced to the center as well -- yet ultra-liberal Democrats are somehow never affected. Not one Democrat has yet lost a federal election because of RCV, but several Republicans or conservatives have.

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For example, RCV was directly responsible for the otherwise highly-unlikely Republican loss of the Alaska U.S. House seat in 2022, and this new convoluted way of counting votes assisted immeasurably with the Senate re-election of far-left "Republican" Lisa Murkowski over underfunded conservative challenger Kelly Tshibaka that year. Democrats did not even bother to contest that Senate election aside from the tiniest token effort, since Murkowski is for all intents and purposes one of them anyway; she votes more often with Democrats than she does with Republicans.

One thing which is of paramount importance in this rigged system is for a major party to enforce discipline among its potential candidates, making sure not to split the vote among party rivals. The Democrats, who don't exactly have a lot of candidates in Alaska anyway, understand this; the Republicans -- who are known as the Stupid Party, and for good reason -- have repeatedly failed to grasp this concept.

In 2022, Sarah Palin and Nick Begich split the GOP vote and allowed a liberal Democrat to steal the election even though Republicans took over 60% of the open primary vote. The Palin-haters within the GOP who initially supported Begich then "won" in November by throwing their support to the Democrat instead of to Palin.

Photo credit: Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Buyer's remorse regarding RCV has set in, and this November the repeal of that abomination will be on the ballot after withstanding court challenges from the left. That's fine, but Republicans on August 20 took one (perhaps) last opportunity to demonstrate their stupidity. They once again ran multiple candidates for the House -- Begich is back for another shot, opposed by gadfly candidate Nancy Dahlstrom -- and once again have created a damaging intra-party rift which is likely to be costly in November.

Liberal Democrat incumbent Mary Peltola, who has been furiously faking to the center with her House votes this year, even achieved a tick more than 50% of the vote in last Tuesday's all-party primary. If this happens again in 2 1/2 months, the Rigged Choice Voting provisions won't even be necessary for the Republicans to be defeated once more in their quest for Alaska's lone seat in Congress. The disarray among the GOP in The Last Frontier may even result in the permanent retention of Rigged Choice Voting, since Republicans are the ones who oppose this Democrat scheme while Democrats (obviously) strongly support it, and the Republican fracture at the House level may carry over and jeopardize the repeal of RCV.

Those Republicans who support the repeal of RCV are currently being outspent by a 2:1 ratio by Democrat forces which desperately wish to keep it in place. Do not take this issue lightly simply because it's happening in a state which is as far away as possible from most American voters, and not normally considered to be politically significant.

Maine and Alaska have been the guinea pigs for Rigged Choice Voting and liberals couldn't be happier with the results they have achieved so far. Though a handful of states have pre-emptively banned RCV, there's still a good chance that it will be approaching a state near you in the not-too-distant future.

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The state of Washington held its primary on August 6, but the deadline for vote-counting isn't until August 23. There were a few races worth noting in this all-mail voting state, including one which very may well continue past the stated deadline -- but only if the Republican erases the infinitesimal lead which a Democrat currently has. After all, it's a well-established state tradition that the result of a close election is not declared final until the Democrat wins (just ask Republican "Governor" Dino Rossi).

Washington is one of five states which conduct elections entirely by mail-in voting. The Democrat-controlled legislature passed a bill in 2011 which mandates that approach to elections, and it was signed into law by Democrat Governor Christine Gregoire -- the same person who reaped the benefits of the creative Democrat vote counting (and recounting, and recounting) shenanigans back in 2004 at Rossi's expense.

Since all-mail voting became the law of the land in Washington, Republicans have lost every election for Senate and Governor there, and only two Republicans have been victorious for other statewide elections (one of which wasn't even opposed by a Democrat that November) in 13 years. The GOP hasn't done too well at the state legislative level nor the U.S. House level either, both of those being things which are heavily influenced by perpetual Democrat gerrymanders.

The lone "Republican" who has enjoyed true success running statewide in the Evergreen State was former Secretary of State Kim Wyman. Wyman was elected to that office, which is in charge of election administration (including vote counting) in 2012 and then was elected again in 2016 and 2020. Her effectiveness on behalf of Democrats while in her position as Republican S.O.S. is nicely illustrated by the fact that she resigned in 2021 in order to work for -- we're not making this up -- the Deep State entity known as the "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency" in an important position dealing with "election security". That is a term normally defined by Democrats as "making sure Republicans don't interfere with our cheating".

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The real nailbiter of a race which is currently going on in Washington is for the office of Commissioner of Public Lands (CPL), which is wide open since the incumbent liberal Democrat commissioner, Hillary Franz, chose to run for Congress in Washington's 6th district instead. She lost her primary earlier this month and promptly blamed dark and evil forces for her defeat. Speaking of which, the easy winner in November in CD-6 will now be ultra-liberal Democrat Emily Randall, who will be a real barrier-breaker as the first Latina dyke ever to be elected to Congress.

Votes are still being tabulated, but the CPL race unofficially stands like this at the moment:

1. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R): 419.297, 22.0%
2. Dave Upthegrove (D): 396,300, 20.8%
3. Sue Pederson (R): 396,249, 20.8%

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Elsewhere in Washington, there were hotly-contested primary elections in the three districts (out of a total of 10) where Republicans have any real chance at victory in November.

In CD-5 (Eastern Washington: Spokane, Walla Walla, Pullman) incumbent moderate Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers is retiring at the age of 55 after 10 terms in the House. She will be replaced in the R+8 district by Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner after the formality of his general election victory in a few months. He's likely to be even more "moderate" than the woman he's replacing. This district could do better.

In CD-3 (Southwest Washington: Vancouver) it will be Round 2 for Joe Kent vs. Marie Perez. The district is rated as R+5 which means it shouldn't really even be a tossup -- the GOP should win with relative ease -- but the solidly conservative MAGA Republican, Kent, was repeatedly backstabbed by his own party in 2022 and might be again. Democrats are spending an ungodly amount of money to try to hold this seat, which is at or near #1 on the list of potential Republican pickups in the House for 2024. Kent may win this time around, but there won't be any "relative ease" about it and he'd better be wearing a Kevlar vest at all times to insulate himself from knife wounds.

After losing by less than 1% in 2022, Kent immediately declared that he would be running again in 2024. Probably with behind-the-scenes help from the GOP establishment, Republican lawyer Leslie Lewallen made her way into the race for the express purpose of sabotaging Kent's chances. She spent the primary campaign focusing solely on attacking Kent even though Democrat Perez was on the same ballot.

Kent trounced Lewallen on August 6 by over 25 points. The two Republicans combined to receive over 51% of the vote, with just under 46% for the Democrat and 2.5% for an independent. If -- and only if -- nearly all of Lewallen's voters move to Kent in November this district will have a conservative congressman for the first time since Linda Smith (1995-1998) and Smith was much more of a libertarian than a conservative.

Washington congressional district 4

The highest-profile congressional primary in Washington took place in the solidly Republican (R+11) 4th district, which covers the central third of the state geographically, including Yakima and the Tri-Cities area. CD-4 is only 52% White and 40% Hispanic (nearly all of which are Mexicans) but the non-citizens tend to not vote, and those citizens who do vote lean staunchly to the right. No Democrat has exceeded 40% in a House election here since 1996, with the exception of 2006 when the Rats barely cleared that figure (40.1%).

The 2024 election will be the third one in the last six where two Republicans and zero Democrats will battle for the win. The incumbent, liberal Republican Dan Newhouse, is the next-to-last House Impeachment RINO left standing. All others among the 10 in the House GOP who voted to impeach Donald Trump have either run away voluntarily or been defeated at the polls since they did their dirty deed. Aside from Newhouse, the only one remaining is David Valadao of California, who represents a Democrat-leaning district in the Central Valley.

While Trump had endorsed one of Newhouse's two challengers (Jerrod Sessler) in this race long ago, he decided to increase his chances of padding the Trump Winning Percentage by also endorsing the other challenger (Tiffany Smiley) on the eve of the primary. Trump's rhetoric against the liberal Newhouse was, oddly (or perhaps not so oddly), comparatively mild compared to his vitriol against 100% conservative Rep. Bob Good, who lost his primary in Virginia a few weeks back.

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Sessler is a decorated Naval veteran (not some Stolen Valor coward like Democrat VP nominee Tampon Timmy Walz) who has also beaten Stage IV cancer which was said to be 95% terminal. He is a solid Christian conservative who describes himself as an American Patriot. Perhaps at this point you are beginning to understand why the GOPe fears Jerrod Sessler.

If Sessler is elected, he should be a reliably conservative vote in the House (unlike Newhouse) and based on his background will likely be a fighter for his country and his party, as opposed to being a go-along-to-get-along spineless milquetoast like the vast majority of House Republicans.

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As an aside, Sessler's campaign bio touches briefly on the fact that he is a "former NASCAR driver". It's hardly a big part of his list of qualifications, but it almost became a sticking point two years ago. Sessler was no national star as a driver; he participated in a small regional racing series which was under the auspices of NASCAR. [BTW, Sessler is the second ex-NASCAR driver running for the House this year as a Republican; we wrote about the other one here].

Just before the 2022 primary, NASCAR executives became aware of Sessler's candidacy and were concerned that he might be pulling a "Walz" and claiming to be something he really wasn't; they apparently had no record of Sessler's racing history and would surely have ordered Sessler to cease and desist using the NASCAR trademark in his campaign if evidence had not been furnished to back his claim.

NASCAR, long ago, was considered to be a "Republican" sport and kind of the antithesis of today's leftist/racist WNBA. NASCAR was a sport with good patriotic American participants and fans (again, the opposite of the WNBA). These days, however, NASCAR is every bit as "politically correct" as the major sports it so desperately wishes to emulate, and its corporate executives and bean-counters are almost uniformly well to the left on the political spectrum.

There is no longer any controversy about Sessler's NASCAR credentials, which are unimportant anyway, so those who loathe conservatives -- including the entire Republican establishment -- are finding other weapons with which to assault Sessler. Trump's going to have to put a lot of his political weight behind this challenger, or an Impeachment RINO is going to avoid extinction one more time.

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2024 House Alaska Washington