Why Pfeiffer says the Sullivan tactic may have limited effect

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 42:34

   Why would Democrats do this in the first place, especially in a state where you have a ranked choice between four names anyway? like it doesn't seem like it would have the maximum effect because you could just rank both Sullivans if you were confused somehow. Yeah. Let's start there, and then we can talk about the... I can't really figure out why this was worth that level of effort. Same. That was sort of my first reaction.

2. 43:02

   Now, if someone just looked at the first Dan Sullivan they saw, and it was the other Dan Sullivan, not the Senator Dan Sullivan, and then put their second choice, who was not named Dan Sullivan, second, then that would solve the problem. But if someone got in there and they were legitimately confused about which Dan Sullivan they were supporting and they just put them one and two, then Dan Sullivan Center would get that vote in the second round of ranked choice voting.

3. 43:27

   Yes. So it seems a little like overcomplicating this simple. Now, Alaska is challenging because it's a ranked choice vote and they have a four-person primary. That ends with the four top people being on the ballot. And so this was smart. They went to great efforts to ensure there was no Democrat, other Democrat on the ballot. And like ultimately, the larger math here is you can't, in a ranked choice voting, you can't lower the win number below 50 because that's the whole point of ranked choice voting.

4. 43:54

   You've got to get to 50 in multiple eras. But, you know, I think they thought that if you won, if you had multiple Republicans, multiple Dan Sullivan, you might get to the second ballot with Mary Peltola winning. Right. So, you know, there's been a, sort of an outcry, even not just on the right, but, you know, people who are more center left, moderate, some Democrats were just like, you know, we should condemn this, this was wrong. And I like, so Alaska public media went and interviewed a bunch of voters about this and voters who were like either Republicans were voting for Paltola or independents or, you know, so not like Mary Paltola fans necessarily. But so one voter who's an unregistered, like no party voter who I think is going to go for Paltola said, it does give, I think as some of the kids would describe it, icky vibes. But at the same time,

5. 44:49

   I think voters are intelligent and can figure out how to rank and can figure out which Dan Sullivan is their person. And I think that's where I land on the whole thing. Like, icky, but also, like, if it's within the law, which it sounds like it is. It is not illegal. It's not illegal. Ballast stacking is not illegal. Ballast stacking is not illegal. And is it like a campaign dirty trick, like the kind that Republicans do all the time?

6. 45:13

   Yeah. But it's like, if we want to make it illegal, we should make it illegal. If we think it's wrong, wrong enough that it shouldn't be allowed, then there should be laws against it. Right. There are several questions here. There is one, is it illegal? It is not. Two, is it unprecedented? It's absolutely unprecedented. Campaigns do this all the time. In fact, you may remember from that dark period of time known as 2020 that allies of Trump recruited Kanye West to run for president in the hope that it would siphon Black voters away from Joe Biden.

7. 45:45

   There are efforts underway on both sides to promote third-party candidates in the races where they think that's going to help them. If there's a socialist on the ballot, they're going to try to promote that socialist. The Republicans in the Trump campaign did this with Jill Stein in 2016. Like, this is not... And they spend money on this. They like to really promote these candidates. You normally need, like, a pass-through, separate super PAC.

8. 46:07

   Like, it is legal, but sketchy as basically all campaign finances these days. And then there's a question, is, was this advisable? No, you know, it's probably not as beneficial. If there were two Dan Sullivan's and there was no rank choice voting, that would be more impactful than this, but it probably helps on the margins and what is it, you know, certainly looks to be a very hard but winnable race.

9. 46:27

   And then there's a question of, now that this has been revealed, is it going to hurt Mary Paltola? Right. This is a big question. I mean, I can't take a few interviews from Alaska Public Media to tell me that it's not going to do it. I would be surprised if it had an impact. I would. And I've seen some I've seen some social listening data which shows that this story is not exactly breaking through, rocketing across both either nationally or in the state.

10. 46:50

    So I can't, you know, obviously in a close race, everything makes a difference. I don't think this is a game changer. Yeah, I thought I thought that the piece by Alaska public media was like a good focus group. Right. It's not hard data, but, you know, registered Republican planning to vote for Peltola said this is nothing we haven't seen before or heard before. And then someone else said, both sides play pretty dirty pool.

11. 47:12

    And if you're stupid enough that you can't tell the difference between an incumbent and a non-incumbent, I don't have any patience for you. Alaskans are smarter than that. That's why Trump's the one who said people were too dumb to know what an incumbent was. I do think there's a little bit of that where it's like you hear about the news and you're probably like, well, that's kind of scummy, right?

12. 47:26

    Like that's kind of gross that they did that. But what's the different? Like, I thought that's what politics is. And that's why I don't like politics and probably hate both parties equally. Like this is probably your median voter, right? Yeah. And also, what do you think we're dumb and we can't figure out the difference between an incumbent and not an incumbent? Like, there's also a little bit of that, too, which is like, what are you talking about?

13. 47:45

    Like, it says right there, Senator Dan Sullivan, or Dan Sullivan incumbent. And then the other one is Daniel J. Sullivan. And now, I mean, it's public enough and it's getting enough attention that I'm sure there won't be much confusion. Which is one of the arguments for why, political arguments for Trump doing the lawsuit, right, is to draw attention to this. Right. um now i think that so we got the doj now trying to investigate we got the house oversight committee subpoenas here and there like i don't know where any of this goes but it does seem like unless there is some kind of a campaign finance violation in all of this right or there's some kind of sketchy finance thing that's actually illegal and not sketchy, none of the other stuff seems like it is even close to breaking the law.

14. 48:29

    Right. I mean, this is ultimately, in their minds, pretext for a very, very long shot to somehow prevent Mary Paul Toloff's election win from being certified. Yeah. Citing voter confusion. Like Mark Elias had a good piece on this, which went to, like they drafted the complaint in the suit make, to set the case for, or to set the context for claiming that voters were confused, which could be an argument that could be used, although it'd be very, very hard, I think, to prevail in that argument to prevent Petola from winning, from being seated if she won.

15. 49:00

    And just so everyone knows, if Alaska goes to a ranked choice tabulation, because no one hits 50%, November 18th is the date they do that. So buckle up, folks. It's going to be a fun few weeks.