Pete Hegseth’s Nomination was Opposed by the Fruits of ‘Ranked Choice Voting’

Two of the three Republican Senators to vote against the confirmation of Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were elected by a ranked-choice voting system.

On Thursday, Alaskan U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski and Maine U.S. Senator Susan Collins both announced that they will be voting against the confirmation of Trump-appointed Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth.

The decision comes as a ‘stab-in-the-back’ to Republican voters in the State who elected Trump in a landslide. Murkowski and Collins both voted in favor of the confirmation of woke Biden Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and countless other Biden apparatchiks – including radical Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson, treasonous Attorney General Merrick Garland, border-neglecting DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and LGBTQ-obsessed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – who helped destroy America.

When Lisa Murkowski was re-elected to her position as the senior U.S. Senator from Alaska in 2022 amidst major pushback from conservative Republicans in the state, she achieved her victory through a process never used by any other candidate in the history of her state.

In 2020, Alaskan voters questionably approved a ballot measure that proliferated the use of a system called ‘ranked-choice’ voting. That system eliminated party-line voting in the primary process, creating a jungle primary-style system designed to favor establishment Republican incumbent candidates like Murkowski in the heavily conservative state.

Murkowski achieved her victory in 2022 through this system, a first for Alaska, after political groups affiliated with the U.S. Senator plunged millions of dollars into an effort to protect the newly adopted system. The big money hijacking of the Alaskan political process protected Murkowski and screwed her Trump-backed competitor Kelly Tshibaka.

As she continues to stray further from those who voted to keep her in office just two years ago, Senator Lisa Murkowski has worked to insulate herself from potential political challengers by changing the way Alaskans vote.

What is Ranked-Choice Voting?

In the Alaskan ‘ranked-choice’ system, voters are allowed to rank their first, second, and third choice. If any candidate receives over fifty percent of the total votes in any round, they are named the winner.

If no candidate achieves the 50% threshold during a round of voting, lower candidates are eliminated until a candidate eventually reaches the necessary benchmark. Only two states in the entire country currently utilize any form of ranked-choice voting: Maine and Alaska.

It is worth noting that Collins’ most recent re-election in 2020 came unopposed from the Republican side from anyone other than an obscure write-in challenger, but ranked-choice voting could protect her from legitimate competition during a planned re-election run in 2026.

The controversial system of voting has been critiqued by some as a form of protection for hardened political figures keen on warding off newcoming challengers. In November of 2024, the District of Columbia also voted to implement ranked-choice voting starting in 2026.

Eleven states, Tennessee, Florida, Idaho, South Dakota, Montana, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri, have outlawed ranked-choice voting entirely, pointing to the growing awareness of the voting system’s tremendous flaws.

Murkowski-Supporting Groups Funded Campaign To Protect Ranked-Choice In Alaska

To protect ranked-choice voting in Alaska, political action committees in support of Murkowski dumped considerable money into advertising campaigns aimed at protecting the newly adopted voting system in 2024.

A ballot initiative created to appeal the ranked-choice system offered Alaskans a chance to exit the ranked-choice voting system, an effort that Senator Lisa Murkowski and her allies in the Washington political establishment desperately wanted to quash.

These groups spent an astounding $15 Million in one election cycle on these advertisements, some of which even starred Murkowski herself. Leading up to the 2024 Election, this pile of money was used to carpet-bomb Alaskans with pro-ranked-choice voting advertisements.

In a 2023 interview with PBS, the Alaskan Senator took a strong stand in support of the system, and an even stronger stand against the 2024 ballot initiative to repeal the system.

Murkowski said: “We like the fact that candidates were actually perhaps a little bit more civil to their opponents, when I knew that I needed to get Margaret’s second place vote. So I’m not going to trash talk her in our debates or in my public encounters because I want to pick up some of that support, too… I think what we demonstrated in Alaska was the possibility that electoral reform can happen and it can deliver outcomes that are less partisan and perhaps less politically rancorous. Unaffiliated voters] get into the general, and what they’ve been given are two individuals on the extremes of both sides. And they look at that and say, how do I have a voice in this? Ranked choice gives them that voice.

You go to a restaurant, you’ve got a whole slate of things in front of you. Do I want the chicken fajita? Do I want the beef tacos? Do I want the enchiladas? [You] select. We can prioritize. It’s not hard.”

When the dust settled, Murkowski and her allies were victorious, and the ranked-choice voting system that the Alaskan Senator had worked to protect was officially declared “here to stay.”

Two of three Republican Senators Who Voted Against Hegseth Were Elected By Ranked-Choice Voting

Whether it is a coincidence or not, it is certainly peculiar that two of the three Republican Senators to vote against the confirmation of Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were elected by a ranked-choice voting system.

Both of these lawmakers are shielded from constituent feedback and free to do the bidding of their establishment masters because of the aid given to them through the biased ranked-choice system. Collins and Murkowski are examples of the type of politician the system will produce perpetually under ranked choice.

While efforts to challenge the Republican incumbent may be difficult getting the current configuration of the election system in Maine and Alaska, Trump and his team have vowed primary challenges to any Republican who votes against the President’s nominees. The political winds are shifting fast, and even ranked-choice voting may not be enough to save Murkowski or Collins in 2026.

Collins and Murkowski’s decision to betray conservative principles, and cast their cowardly vote against the confirmation of Hegseth, could mark the beginning of an intense struggle for their political lives.