That’s the fallacy of the system in Alaska - they still have a primary, and only include the top primary votegetters on the ballot. With Ranked Choice, the ranking part is the primary.
bet $30M to win $50M?? Not a good risk:reward ratio IMO.
Your asserting this does not make it true.
Here are some arguments against rank choice voting
- Respondent Annoyance. If the list is long, ranking every item can be tedious, and the difference in preference after the first few is likely trivial. I recently saw a survey that asked to rank order 19 (sic) items!! You can be certain that after the first 3 or 5 were ranked by respondents, they were then just clicking on buttons to get it done.
- Respondent Error. Think about the Florida butterfly ballot from the 2000 election depicted nearby. No matter how clear the instructions, some people would screw it up. Fact is, instructions on surveys or ballots are like safety instructions at the start of an air flight: no one pays attention to them.
…On a paper ballot, some people will vote for two 1stchoices or vote for no 1st choices – maybe as a way of saying they don’t really like any candidate. Such ballots would likely be declared invalid for that office election. Even voting for the same candidate for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices could invalidate the ballot. Is that fair?
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Those arguments dont even try to touch on the fundamental merits of the system. They all boil down to nothing more than “But but but I dont like it!!!”.
A traditional voting system forces voters to decide if they are going to vote for the candidate they want to win, or if they should vote for the candidate they think is most likely to win in order to prevent the candidate they hate from winning. This is a fundamental violation of the principles of a free election and forces votes to be cast based on fear rather than choice, unlike your criticisms of RCV which are entirely based on individuals not bothering to read the instructions.
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The Trump to win was about 50-50 a few weeks ahead of the election, but he pushed the market a bit to get that size / liquidity of the bet on. He also bet on Trump to win the popular vote, which was not at all expected, so he got better payouts there.
You gotta respect someone who sees an anomaly (neighbor polls showing Harris worse than others), commissions his own national poll from a big polling agency to test this effect for real, and takes it to the bank.
I know a guy who was betting the evening of the election after many of the surprising east coast margins were showing much better for trump and bought Trump at 80% to win then. He’s a professional gambler and he thought that was a better bet (only 1:4) at 9pm election night than the 55% odds or whatever going into Election Day before the first results started coming out.
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Maybe it’s time to start a 2026/2028 election thread, but here’s why the Senate looks like it will be the Republican’s to lose for the rest of the decade. Very favorable seats for them in strong red states, while Democrats have to defend senate seats in swing states where Trump won.
speculation on the impact of Trump proposals / policies on business in his coming term
Senator Sanders wins over and over the election in Vermont as an independent. There are other candidates in the ballot, including Republican and Libertarian. So you can break the duopoly without a confusing system.
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Disagree. They address my fundamental problems with it, which are that it is too complex and ordinary voters do not understand it, and it will lead to perverse results. They may not be yours, but the average voter does not post on a website about complex financial offers.
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What are you disagreeing about? Because that’s exactly what I just said.
Saying people are too stupid to understand and too lazy to read instructions is a commentary about voters, not the voting system.
From the article:
This isn’t about the accidents of maps in one or two election cycles. It’s a natural consequence of geographic polarization. Republicans have a slight edge in the electoral college, but an absolute massive advantage in the Senate.
The Republicans have their work cut out for them. Anytime in the future that the Democrats control the Senate and the presidency, they will nuke the filibuster, admit Puerto Rico and DC as states, pack the supreme court, and try to take away peoples’ weapons. In that case, the SMHTF, shit may … We are living in “exciting times”
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To quote the great JD Vance, arguing with ABC’s Martha Radish, do you hear yourself? Unless you have figured out a way to import a totally new electorate, we have to design the voting system to work with the voters we have.
Thinking about it, the Democrats have been importing a new electorate. But I do not think they are any more disposed to rank choice voting than our current one. Given the last election, they may not even be more disposed to voting for Democrats.
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it’s a very educated (I think most) electorate. They also elected an R Governor, so seem candidate-focused
We have the opposite in AZ. Hope we get open primaries soon.
Just got this from KH ActBlue? Anyone 
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wow so whale had/created insider info. Good for him. FR is “investigating” him
What about East coast guy did he bet/win big?
Did you donate to them before? I read her campaign went through $1Billion and is in debt for additional $20 million.
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I would NEVER donate to either side. My in laws were on the Dem donee list (even after dementia) I did collect from Musk PAC (we’ll see if the check comes) I do agree about public basic funding, but not the billions we are spending now. Shorter campaign cycles too.
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They just sent you an email out of the blue? Pun intended.
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Good Q:
I have signed up for events on both sides. Interestingly GOP/DJT events were widely publicized/open in AZ. Dems only did so at the very end
I like watching the circus… didn’t expect the carnival barker to win at the end though… I wasn’t the only one
Bill Maher had a good take
“For months democrats have been clamouring about “how is this race even close?!?” And they’re right; it’s wasnt”
The still-in-denial liberals blaming sexism for Harris’ defeat have a bit of a dilemma - if you think that the American populace is too sexist vote for a women so she couldn’t get elected, maybe they should stop nominating women. I mean, the ends justify the means and they won’t win if they keep appointing (bad) female candidates. Maybe they should try a primary next time…
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that he did. Bill is spot on about the far left… and right. I hope Dems learn from this.
BTW Fun fact Bill will be on the enemies list having been sued DJT for https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/06/showbiz/trump-bill-maher-suit/index.html