United States 2024: United States Senate Dicussion Thread

[Circle of Willis]

Ranked choice voting is something that Alaskan's chose for themselves, not something forced on them, and the idea Alaska was solid Red is long out of date.

Project Veritas has gotten Murkowski's people to admit like a month ago that they pushed hard for RCV precisely to benefit her. You're right on one note though, it is indeed ultimately up to the people of each state to defend themselves from leftist takeovers, and if they're foolish enough to be conned by the likes of Murkowski's team into adopting new rules and systems which will ultimately only exist to their detriment, that's their fault and they've got to wake up.

As to the solution to the problem of liberal locusts Californicating your state, barring a coordinated campaign to harass these expats into fucking off, Texas and the other red states have shown that the better (and legal!) way to get them to self-deport back to their hellholes before they ruin your state is to adopt hard-right restrictions & bans on things they enjoy, like abortion, thereby making the state in question less attractive to them in the first place. Even if they don't crawl back to whichever far-left anarcho-tyrannical shithole they crawled out of, at the very least you can drive them into nearby containment states like New Mexico this way.

If the people of the state (in this case Alaska) are unwilling to do so, then while I'd like to say that's their problem, clearly it will soon become everyone's problem - besides the obvious changes to state and federal politics they bring, they'll ruin the new state just as they did their old one and then spread elsewhere (but take their voting habits with them and refuse to recognize the consequences of their decisions). No different to how California itself was shifted leftward into ruin by New Yorkers even before they started getting flooded with illegals, in fact, and how liberal Californian expats have been polluting states like Texas and Idaho in turn.

 

[Vyor]

Because they can chose to go away from 'first past the post' and into ranked choice, if they tell their state legislature to do so.

It wasn't ranked choice that was the problem, it was the open primaries.

 

[Circle of Willis]

It wasn't ranked choice that was the problem, it was the open primaries.

Mix of both, I'd say. Ranked choice inherently favors middle-of-the-road candidates who don't really appeal strongly to any factions but are considered the least offensive by all of them - as I said, this is how the Canadian Tories have managed to box out insurgent candidates and promote milquetoast weather-vanes beloved by none save the established party bosses twice in a row. California-style jungle primaries just make the problem even worse by allowing RINO/Red Tory types to add their votes to the other party's candidate and make doubly sure that the populist insurgents can't win.

 

[Vyor]

Mix of both, I'd say. Ranked choice inherently favors middle-of-the-road candidates who don't really appeal strongly to any factions but are considered the least offensive by all of them - as I said, this is how the Canadian Tories have managed to box out insurgent candidates and promote milquetoast weather-vanes beloved by none save the established party bosses twice in a row. California-style jungle primaries just make the problem even worse by allowing RINO/Red Tory types to add their votes to the other party's candidate and make doubly sure that the populist insurgents can't win.

I can agree with that to a point.

 

[Bacle]

Project Veritas has gotten Murkowski's people to admit like a month ago that they pushed hard for RCV precisely to benefit her. You're right on one note though, it is indeed ultimately up to the people of each state to defend themselves from leftist takeovers, and if they're foolish enough to be conned by the likes of Murkowski's team into adopting new rules and systems which will ultimately only exist to their detriment, that's their fault and they've got to wake up.

As to the solution to the problem of liberal locusts Californicating your state, barring a coordinated campaign to harass these expats into fucking off, Texas and the other red states have shown that the better (and legal!) way to get them to self-deport back to their hellholes before they ruin your state is to adopt hard-right restrictions & bans on things they enjoy, like abortion, thereby making the state in question less attractive to them in the first place. Even if they don't crawl back to whichever far-left anarcho-tyrannical shithole they crawled out of, at the very least you can drive them into nearby containment states like New Mexico this way.

If the people of the state (in this case Alaska) are unwilling to do so, then while I'd like to say that's their problem, clearly it will soon become everyone's problem - besides the obvious changes to state and federal politics they bring, they'll ruin the new state just as they did their old one and then spread elsewhere (but take their voting habits with them and refuse to recognize the consequences of their decisions). No different to how California itself was shifted leftward into ruin by New Yorkers even before they started getting flooded with illegals, in fact, and how liberal Californian expats have been polluting states like Texas and Idaho in turn.

You make the mistake of assuming that the people in Alaska didn't see what was going on and were ok with it.

Alaska is a GOP state in name only, and the state is also in such bad financial straights (due to decline in oil revenues and lack of tourist money due to Wu Flu for a few years) they cannot afford to chase off money from blue state's like Texas can.

It wasn't ranked choice that was the problem, it was the open primaries.

Open primaries are not a bad thing; they give a wider field of candidates more potential to get into office and are more representative of the voters voice as a whole, compared to closed primaries.

Of course if the GOP cannot adapt to states deciding to go to ranked choice voting and open primaries, then it's no one but the GOP's fault when they fall behind the curve, yet again.

 

[Circle of Willis]

You make the mistake of assuming that the people in Alaska didn't see what was going on and were ok with it.

Alaska is a GOP state in name only, and the state is also in such bad financial straights (due to decline in oil revenues and lack of tourist money due to Wu Flu for a few years) they cannot afford to chase off money from blue state's like Texas can.

If Alaskans wish to prioritize short-term financial benefit at the expense of certain long-term ruination (financial and otherwise), then on their heads be it. But I do not believe we should easily discount the efforts Murkowski and team (as they have admitted to PV) put in to tip the scales in favor of the outcome which would benefit them, especially as the original 2020 measure to change how Alaska's elections worked passed by a very thin margin - something like 1.1% IIRC.

Open primaries are not a bad thing; they give a wider field of candidates more potential to get into office and are more representative of the voters voice as a whole, compared to closed primaries.

Of course if the GOP cannot adapt to states deciding to go to ranked choice voting and open primaries, then it's no one but the GOP's fault when they fall behind the curve, yet again.

'Voters as a whole' getting a voice isn't the point of a primary, that's what the general election for. The entire purpose of primaries is for each party to select the candidate it wants to field for the general, which is why open primaries in general are a joke and jungle ones, the sort of crack only the Joker could think up. Frankly I'm of the opinion that, like our election integrity measures, one of the things our parties do get right up here in Canada is having absolutely closed primaries - you have to pay for a party membership if you want a vote in the candidates we put forth, so that as bad as the party establishment and their picks can get, at least Trudeau can't just have a crapload of Liberal voters choose his opponent for him. (Seriously, as bad as Scheer and O'Toole were, they at least had at least one small policy difference to distinguish them - however minimally - from Castro's bastard, unlike say Michael Chong)

In any case, look at the states with the most open (or 'jungle') primaries. Aside from Alaska, there's California and Washington, both of whom have seen their transformation from purple or even reddish to bluer-than-sapphire accelerate massively with jungle primaries to the point where Republicans can't even get on the final ballot for Senate seats in the former home of Ronald Reagan anymore. And obviously, Murk's leading in the Alaska Senate race while Palin just lost the House one. These results speak much more loudly than any rhetoric of how an 'open primary' is 'more representative of voters as a whole' or whatever, which is plainly the teaspoon of honey people like FairVote give out to make the bucketload of poison they have prepared a smidge more palatable.

I will be blunt, there's no faster and more obvious way to kill MAGA (or any other populist movement that still operates within a democratic & lawful framework) stone dead than the mass adoption of RCV + jungle primaries. You think McConnell isn't noticing how Murkowski just turned the tables on Tshibaka's Trump-backed populist insurgency just now and taking notes? The Tories here can give him many a lesson on that too. There's been much talk about how the US is in a 'cold civil war', I'd advise anyone who even leans slightly right to start acting like it and do the bare minimum to deny their opponents the weapons for an easy win, starting by not cutting their own throats at the starting line via any jungle primary voodoo bullshit.

 

[Bacle]

If Alaskans wish to prioritize short-term financial benefit at the expense of certain long-term ruination (financial and otherwise), then on their heads be it. But I do not believe we should easily discount the efforts Murkowski and team (as they have admitted to PV) put in to tip the scales in favor of the outcome which would benefit them, especially as the original 2020 measure to change how Alaska's elections worked passed by a very thin margin - something like 1.1% IIRC.

Alaska hadn't had a 'balanced budget' for 5 years BEFORE WU FLU HIT.

Also, Alaska attracts a lot of both radical 'greens' from other states, and neocon warhawks because of the large military presence. The native tribes these days also tend to be more...socially minded, in woke ways, but still 'embrace tradition' more than a lot of the right.

Right now the warhawks care more about what is happening overseas than about Trump for the most part, and the radical 'greens' were never really in Trump's camp. The native might split, but not by enough for Trump it seems.

'Voters as a whole' getting a voice isn't the point of a primary, that's what the general election for. The entire purpose of primaries is for each party to select the candidate it wants to field for the general, which is why open primaries in general are a joke and jungle ones, the sort of crack only the Joker could think up. Frankly I'm of the opinion that, like our election integrity measures, one of the things our parties do get right up here in Canada is having absolutely closed primaries - you have to pay for a party membership if you want a vote in the candidates we put forth, so that as bad as the party establishment and their picks can get, at least Trudeau can't just have a crapload of Liberal voters choose his opponent for him.

In any case, look at the states with the most open (or 'jungle') primaries. Aside from Alaska, there's California and Washington, both of whom have seen their transformation from purple or even reddish to bluer-than-sapphire accelerate massively with jungle primaries to the point where Republicans can't even get on the final ballot for Senate seats in the former home of Ronald Reagan anymore. And obviously, Murk's leading in the Alaska Senate race while Palin just lost the House one. These results speak much more loudly than any rhetoric of how an 'open primary' is 'more representative of voters as a whole' or whatever, which is plainly the teaspoon of honey people like FairVote give out to make the bucketload of poison they have prepared a smidge more palatable.

I will be blunt, there's no faster and more obvious way to kill MAGA (or any other populist movement that still operates within a democratic & lawful framework) stone dead than the mass adoption of RCV + jungle primaries. You think McConnell isn't noticing how Murkowski just turned the tables on Tshibaka's Trump-backed populist insurgency just now and taking notes? The Tories here can give him many a lesson on that too. There's been much talk about how the US is in a 'cold civil war', I'd advise anyone who even leans slightly right to start acting like it and do the bare minimum to deny their opponents the weapons for an easy win, starting by not cutting their own throats at the starting line via any jungle primary voodoo bullshit.

The idea that many people there liked Palin, are is kinda hilarious, and shows how little you or the GOP understand that state and how it's been trending the last few years.

I say demand an audit of the election if you think it's at all illegit, but do not be surprised if the people of Alaska simply aren't as 'Red' as the Trump base thought.

 

[Rocinante]

Open Primaries are a joke. A big problem.
It causes problems where they opposition party goes and votes for a candidate to stop the party from selecting the candidate they really want.

So let's say DeSantis was running in an open primary. The left can decide they hate DeSantis and come vote for someone else, even if the right really wants DeSantis.

I'm thoroughly against open Primaries. It just allows for dirty games.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Alaska hadn't had a 'balanced budget' for 5 years BEFORE WU FLU HIT.

Also, Alaska attracts a lot of both radical 'greens' from other states, and neocon warhawks because of the large military presence. The native tribes these days also tend to be more...socially minded, in woke ways, but still 'embrace tradition' more than a lot of the right.

Right now the warhawks care more about what is happening overseas than about Trump for the most part, and the radical 'greens' were never really in Trump's camp. The native might split, but not by enough for Trump it seems.
The idea that many people there liked Palin, are is kinda hilarious, and shows how little you or the GOP understand that state and how it's been trending the last few years.

I say demand an audit of the election if you think it's at all illegit, but do not be surprised if the people of Alaska simply aren't as 'Red' as the Trump base thought.

Okay well, I don't think you even read my post if this was your takeaway, but let me restate what I was actually saying:

1) It is entirely the prerogative of Alaskan voters to decide they'd like to go the way of California, Washington and Oregon, as well as select counties in Texas and elsewhere. If they think voting for Democrats in hopes of alleviating their financial pains (even though it's been proven over and over that the Democrats will both turn everything they touch to shit and fight tooth & nail to stay in control even long after the place hits rock bottom) then on their heads be it. That is not in dispute, and it is not for me to forbid Alaskans from destroying themselves, although I do reserve the right to criticize their decisions if I find those decisions to be boneheaded as surely as they may criticize the government of Canada when it fucks up (which is every day).

THAT SAID, Murkowski had an obvious stake in making sure Alaskans voted her way when the ballot measure to switch to RCV + jungle primaries came up. And her staff have openly admitted to putting their thumbs on that scale for her benefit to Project Veritas. Between the narrowness of the measure's victory and Trump actually improving his 2020 margin in Alaska compared to 2016 (taking the state both times), I don't believe we can just take all this as evidence that Alaska actually doesn't like Trump or right-wing populism in general.

2) At no point did I ever suggest an audit of the election, or that the Democrat candidate used fraud to win. This is the whole fucking point of the RCV + jungle primary combo: the uniparty essentially legally rigs the election and ensures that not only will they always get the outcome they want, but that it happens in a completely above-board and lawfully unimpeachable manner. Alaska will now be eternally represented by Democrats and the Murkowskis, with anti-establishment populists shut out in the cold, until either things get bad enough that the Alaskans decide to revert to the old one-man-one-vote system or America itself comes to an end. And there is no audit that will fix that.

Let me get right back to the CPC leadership election here to demonstrate, because we have the slightly less shit half of the equation (ranked choice voting) down pat. If the polls are even halfway accurate, Pierre Poilievre is set to dominate his rivals and become the next leader of the Tories (and hopefully also the next PM of Canada). Now, this is good! He is no Bernier, much less a Trump or DeSantis, but we could certainly have done much worse: if I must compare his 'basedness' to American politicians, I would rank him next to Cruz or perhaps Youngkin on a good day. He demonstrates how conservatives can overcome the odds in an RCV system - man's been building his profile & laying the groundwork to eventually take the leadership since the Harper years, and has been a consistently aggressive anti-Trudeau voice since Trudeau's premiership began. Also, even squisher Conservatives are sufficiently tired of milquetoast Liberal-in-blue-tie leaders like O'Toole to give him a chance now.

BUT! What if we were so braindead as to throw open primaries into the mix? Well, look at the polling for which candidate 'all Canadians' would prefer. Jean Charest consistently leads those polls, not Poilievre. And Charest is quite literally a Liberal, not just in the sense that he's the leftmost of the candidates running and is practically an older Trudeau in a blue tie, but he's a member of the Quebec Liberal Party on the provincial level and was Premier of Quebec as part of that party for almost 10 years. If the leadership election were open to anyone with or without a Conservative membership, ie. it was a jungle primary like Alaska just had and like California always has, Charest would stomp Poilievre thanks to all the Grit and NDP voters rushing to make sure the country will never be in danger of falling to an 'alt-right neofascist' - he couldn't crack more than 20% of the actual Conservative voters' votes, but he wouldn't need to in this scenario. Trudeau would publicly celebrate how the Tories have 'rejected hate and division', then privately have a good laugh with his WEF pals as he prepares to crush yet another uninspiring Liberal-in-blue-tie figure hated by the actual Tory base. No amount of auditing would change that, either.

Do you see the problem here? If you can, then surely you can see its mirror image in Alaska now and coming in November, in Cali, in Washington and wherever else in the US there are open/jungle primaries.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Democrat Mary Peltola wins special election to fill Alaska's U.S. House seat

Mary Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker and the first Native American woman to represent Alaska in Congress, won a special election to fill the state's sole U.S. House seat, the Alaska Division of Elections announced on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

Dems have won Alaska's only House seat in a special election. The seat is subject to the Nov 8th election for re-election, but it is unlikely that the seat will be flipped back to the GOP at that point, if the special election already went to the Dems.

It depends. If Nick Begich III is the only Republican candidate in November, I think he would defeat Peltola.

 

[Ricardolindo]

50-50 chance Republicans sweep New Hampshire, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona by taking back the US Senate

I don't see how the Republicans would win New Hampshire. Their candidate is the obscure Don Bolduc. In Arizona, Blake Masters is a bad candidate so I don't see them winning it either. Also note Mehmet Oz is likely to lose in Pennsylvania because of how bad of a candidate he is.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Okay well, I don't think you even read my post if this was your takeaway, but let me restate what I was actually saying:

1) It is entirely the prerogative of Alaskan voters to decide they'd like to go the way of California, Washington and Oregon, as well as select counties in Texas and elsewhere. If they think voting for Democrats in hopes of alleviating their financial pains (even though it's been proven over and over that the Democrats will both turn everything they touch to shit and fight tooth & nail to stay in control even long after the place hits rock bottom) then on their heads be it. That is not in dispute, and it is not for me to forbid Alaskans from destroying themselves, although I do reserve the right to criticize their decisions if I find those decisions to be boneheaded as surely as they may criticize the government of Canada when it fucks up (which is every day).

THAT SAID, Murkowski had an obvious stake in making sure Alaskans voted her way when the ballot measure to switch to RCV + jungle primaries came up. And her staff have openly admitted to putting their thumbs on that scale for her benefit to Project Veritas. Between the narrowness of the measure's victory and Trump actually improving his 2020 margin in Alaska compared to 2016 (taking the state both times), I don't believe we can just take all this as evidence that Alaska actually doesn't like Trump or right-wing populism in general.

2) At no point did I ever suggest an audit of the election, or that the Democrat candidate used fraud to win. This is the whole fucking point of the RCV + jungle primary combo: the uniparty essentially legally rigs the election and ensures that not only will they always get the outcome they want, but that it happens in a completely above-board and lawfully unimpeachable manner. Alaska will now be eternally represented by Democrats and the Murkowskis, with anti-establishment populists shut out in the cold, until either things get bad enough that the Alaskans decide to revert to the old one-man-one-vote system or America itself comes to an end. And there is no audit that will fix that.

Let me get right back to the CPC leadership election here to demonstrate, because we have the slightly less shit half of the equation (ranked choice voting) down pat. If the polls are even halfway accurate, Pierre Poilievre is set to dominate his rivals and become the next leader of the Tories (and hopefully also the next PM of Canada). Now, this is good! He is no Bernier, much less a Trump or DeSantis, but we could certainly have done much worse: if I must compare his 'basedness' to American politicians, I would rank him next to Cruz or perhaps Youngkin on a good day. He demonstrates how conservatives can overcome the odds in an RCV system - man's been building his profile & laying the groundwork to eventually take the leadership since the Harper years, and has been a consistently aggressive anti-Trudeau voice since Trudeau's premiership began. Also, even squisher Conservatives are sufficiently tired of milquetoast Liberal-in-blue-tie leaders like O'Toole to give him a chance now.

BUT! What if we were so braindead as to throw open primaries into the mix? Well, look at the polling for which candidate 'all Canadians' would prefer. Jean Charest consistently leads those polls, not Poilievre. And Charest is quite literally a Liberal, not just in the sense that he's the leftmost of the candidates running and is practically an older Trudeau in a blue tie, but he's a member of the Quebec Liberal Party on the provincial level and was Premier of Quebec as part of that party for almost 10 years. If the leadership election were open to anyone with or without a Conservative membership, ie. it was a jungle primary like Alaska just had and like California always has, Charest would stomp Poilievre thanks to all the Grit and NDP voters rushing to make sure the country will never be in danger of falling to an 'alt-right neofascist' - he couldn't crack more than 20% of the actual Conservative voters' votes, but he wouldn't need to in this scenario. Trudeau would publicly celebrate how the Tories have 'rejected hate and division', then privately have a good laugh with his WEF pals as he prepares to crush yet another uninspiring Liberal-in-blue-tie figure hated by the actual Tory base. No amount of auditing would change that, either.

Do you see the problem here? If you can, then surely you can see its mirror image in Alaska now and coming in November, in Cali, in Washington and wherever else in the US there are open/jungle primaries.

If you can control who the people are allowed to vote for, you can always and easily control the results of the fair election.

 

[S'task]

"Jungle Primaries" are a joke they're used specifically to prevent parties from actually choosing candidates that the party wants. Jungle Primary + Ranked Choice voting is just having two general elections, just with the second one with a more narrow field of candidates... but with ranked choice there is literally no reason to even HAVE a second round of voting, that first round should contain enough information to determine the election right then and there.

If you are REALLY wanting to maximize "the people's voice" you do EITHER Jungle Primaries OR Ranked Choice Voting. Ranked Choice, absent of the party's ability to select their own candidates to represent them, doesn't actually allow for real choices. Doing both is just a method to ensure that the parties don't actually get to put of candidates that offer real differences in policy, instead muddying things towards some weird mean.

 

[Bacle]

Open Primaries are a joke. A big problem.
It causes problems where they opposition party goes and votes for a candidate to stop the party from selecting the candidate they really want.

So let's say DeSantis was running in an open primary. The left can decide they hate DeSantis and come vote for someone else, even if the right really wants DeSantis.

I'm thoroughly against open Primaries. It just allows for dirty games.

Open primaries allow independents to get a say in the process, instead of just party members.

In CO, if you are and Independent voter, you get sent two ballots, one for each party. You can only send one back in, so you can only vote in one primary, not both.

That is what an open primary is supposed to be, one person one vote but still a say in primaries, not allowing people to vote in both primaries at the same time.

 

[Sergeant Foley]

I don't see how the Republicans would win New Hampshire. Their candidate is the obscure Don Bolduc. In Arizona, Blake Masters is a bad candidate so I don't see them winning it either. Also note Mehmet Oz is likely to lose in Pennsylvania because of how bad of a candidate he is.

Yet McConnell says he has confidence in Oz's ability to keep the Pennsylvania US Senate seat in Republican hands

 

[Ricardolindo]

Yet McConnell says he has confidence in Oz's ability to keep the Pennsylvania US Senate seat in Republican hands

When did McConnell say that? Anyways, if he said that, he is either deluded or, more likely IMO, lying. It's not impossible for Mehmet Oz to win but it is unlikely.

 

[Rocinante]

Open primaries allow independents to get a say in the process, instead of just party members.

In CO, if you are and Independent voter, you get sent two ballots, one for each party. You can only send one back in, so you can only vote in one primary, not both.

That is what an open primary is supposed to be, one person one vote but still a say in primaries, not allowing people to vote in both primaries at the same time.

In Ohio's last GOP primary for governor, there was a movement by the left to vote in our open Primaries and vote for Mike DeWine.

I'm not certain how much difference it made, but it was a real movement, I saw A LOT of people talking about doing it, and DeWine did win the primary.

I'm against this.

It's just a tool for the opposition to make sure the other party doesn't get who they want to get.

 

[Ricardolindo]

In Ohio's last GOP primary for governor, there was a movement by the left to vote in our open Primaries and vote for Mike DeWine.

I'm not certain how much difference it made, but it was a real movement, I saw A LOT of people talking about doing it, and DeWine did win the primary.

I'm against this.

It's just a tool for the opposition to make sure the other party doesn't get who they want to get.

That's the way things work in the United States. Political parties in the United States don't work the way they do in Europe. Even in states with closed primaries, a Democrat can just register as a Republican and vote in the Republican primaries. This is the result of Smith v. Allwright, a 1944 US Supreme Court decision banning white primaries, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Allwright.

 

[Rocinante]

That's the way things work in the United States. Political parties in the United States don't work the way they do in Europe. Even in states with closed primaries, a Democrat can just register as a Republican and vote in the Republican primaries. This is the result of Smith v. Allwright, a 1944 US Supreme Court decision banning white primaries, read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Allwright.

In Ohio voting in thr primaries registers you for that party. But there's nothing stopping you from voting in the next primaries as the other parry.

I like the idea of having to at least register yourself.

Just that tiny extra barrier would prevent a lot of shenanigans.

Perhaps maybe even requiring one to be registered before a certain date would be a good idea.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Democrat Mary Peltola wins special election to fill Alaska's U.S. House seat

Mary Peltola, a Democratic former state lawmaker and the first Native American woman to represent Alaska in Congress, won a special election to fill the state's sole U.S. House seat, the Alaska Division of Elections announced on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

Dems have won Alaska's only House seat in a special election. The seat is subject to the Nov 8th election for re-election, but it is unlikely that the seat will be flipped back to the GOP at that point, if the special election already went to the Dems.

One thing that helped Mary Peltola in this special election was the Native American vote. Alaska is weird because the rural areas are usually more Democratic than the urban areas because they are heavily Native American. The late Representative Don Young was known for having unusually high support for a Republican among Alaska Native American voters. This makes sense considering his first wife Lu Fredson to whom he was married for 46 years between 1963 and her death in 2009 was a Native American woman, more specifically a Gwi'chin, daughter of Gwi'chin leader John Fredson.