Murkowski’s primary win spurs interest in election reforms, as well as criticism

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s surprisingly strong showing in Alaska last week has sparked new interest in election reforms used by the state and that could be a model for the rest of the country, as well as scrutiny from those who suspect the changes may favor one party more than another.

Murkowski, a Republican, was targeted for defeat by former President Trump, whom she voted to impeach after the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. But Murkowski received the most votes of any candidate in the nonpartisan primary, with 44% of the vote to just under 40% for the Trump-backed candidate, Kelly Tshibaka. The rest of the vote was split between a handful of other contenders.

If Alaska had conducted its primaries the way it has in the past — the way most states still do — Murkowski likely would have lost to Tshibaka. But election reform advocates say it’s a mistake to view the new system as helpful or hostile to either Republicans or Democrats.

“This doesn’t mean Trump-endorsed candidates don’t win. If that’s who a majority of November voters want, that’s who they get. It just means all November voters have a voice rather than just 10% of people who turn out in summer primaries,” said Katherine Gehl, founder of the Institute for Political Innovation, a group that has pushed for the changes.

In other words, Alaska’s new system stops a minority of voters in either party from eliminating a candidate with broad appeal before most voters even cast ballots.

In 2020, Alaska voters approved a system which discarded multiple party primaries and merged them all into one contest. Last week, all voters cast ballots in one single primary, rather than separate primaries for Republicans, Democrats and other minor parties.

The top four vote-getters advanced to the fall election, the final round of voting. Murkowski, with 82% of the vote counted, has received almost 69,000 votes, far more than the 39,545 she received in the 2016 Republican primary and more than the 53,872 votes she received in the 2010 Republican primary.