Ranked choice voting is down, but not out 

Ranked choice voting (RCV) was once promoted as the exciting new solution to all of America’s polarization problems; a magic cure for the excesses of the two-party system that would restore sanity and fairness.  

In the simplest form of an RCV election, all candidates, regardless of party, are placed in one pool and voters rank them in order of preference. If no candidate secures a majority of first place ballots, then the candidate with the fewest first place ballots is removed from consideration, and the rankings on those ballots are reassigned. Voters who placed the removed candidate as their first choice have their second choice promoted as their top remaining (i.e.: first) choice. This process repeats until one candidate survives as the top remaining choice for the majority of the voters.  

Getting ranked choice voting actually approved by those voters has been another matter. In the past few years a wave of overwhelming rejections has relegated RCV to a political fad. The RCV camp has suffered expensive defeats, failed signature drives, multiple statewide bans, and losses in court while securing only a handful of wins; mostly local wins affecting small jurisdictions.  

RCV in 2024 

In November 2024 voters simultaneously rejected RCV or RCV-adjacent policies in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona, while voters in Missouri approved a constitutional amendment codifying a formal ban on ranked-choice voting.  

These weren’t just small losses; they were devastating routs. In deep-blue Colorado, Proposition 131, which would have replaced partisan primaries with “jungle” primaries and implemented RCV in general elections, failed despite a massive $14 million fundraising haul, making it one of the most expensive ballot measures in state history. Similar to Proposition 131, Question 3 in Nevada would have created chaotic top-five primaries and ranked-choice general elections that included the five best finishers from the primaries. Things initially looked good, since the proposal had passed once in 2022, but it needed to pass again in 2024 to become law. The measure failed the second time around, making Nevada an especially devastating loss because it proved that voters who had once been open to the concept of RCV had reversed course completely when faced with the reality of RCV.  

Idaho’s Proposition 1, which proposed top-four primaries and ranked-choice general elections, was rejected by an astounding 70 percent of voters. Oregon’s Measure 117, which would have adopted RCV in federal and state elections, also failed. Arizona’s Proposition 140, while not a strictly RCV-only proposal, would have created a “jungle” primary structure and introduced the possibility of RCV in future general elections. Even the possibility of RCV was undesirable for voters, though, and the proposal went down 41 percent to 59 percent. Missouri’s Amendment 7, which proposed the combined package of codified voter ID requirements and an RCV ban, also passed with flying colors, garnering nearly 70 percent of the vote. 

RCV in 2025 and 2026 

Following a spectacular string of losses at the ballot box in 2024, the RCV movement went on to lose in the legislatures.  

In 2025, Arkansas, Kansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, and West Virginia passed and signed legislation banning the use of RCV in local, state, and federal elections, joining Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi, which had all done the same in 2024. 

RCV’s first loss in 2026 was neither at the ballot box nor in the legislature because it didn’t make it that far. The Rank MI Vote campaign, which aimed to put a constitutional amendment to bring ranked-choice voting to Michigan elections on the 2026 ballot, failed to get the necessary signatures. Rank MI Vote did not give up, though, promising to try again for the 2028 ballot. Then, in March 2026, Rank MI Vote activists were heckled and unceremoniously expelled from the Michigan GOP amid cries of “shame” and “communists.” Needless to say, it was not the shot in the arm that RCV needed.

In February 2026, Indiana became the 18th state to ban RCV by passing SB0012. One month later, Ohio became the 19th when Governor Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 63, prohibiting the use of RCV, even in city or township elections, and imposing the threat of a loss of funding to any city or county that continued to use RCV. 

RCV is still holding on 

The forecast is not good for ranked choice voting—in fact, it’s about as bad as it can be. But RCV did manage to hold its ground and even make a few small gains amid all the losing. 

The most important recent win was in Alaska, where voters very narrowly rejected Ballot Measure 2, an effort to repeal the state’s open-primary and ranked-choice general-election system, by less than 1,000 votes. By winning, RCV managed to hang on to the state that has been its crown jewel since RCV was first instituted by ballot measure in 2020. A razor-thin margin like that hardly inspires confidence, but RCV supporters also managed to pick up another win in Washington, D.C., where voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 83, setting a course for the city to begin using it in the 2026 primary. 

In other words, RCV is fading fast, but it’s not dead yet. And with Alaska putting a repeal of RCV on the ballot again in 2026, the movement will probably have to make its last stand. Without Alaska, RCV will be reduced to a fad that clings to the edges of urban progressive areas, low-salience local elections, and enclaves where the activist class propping up RCV can focus its resources.  

The donors keeping RCV on life support 

Through all the highs and (mostly) lows, the RCV movement has been kept alive by a small network of left-leaning donors and activists who have refused to give up on the dream that once allowed Alaska to elect a Democrat in a statewide election. That fleeting victory seems to have created an addiction, and many donors are still happily forking over cash to the floundering cause. 

The most notable backer of RCV is probably Unite America, a Denver-based political action committee (PAC) that promotes open primaries and ranked-choice voting as a cure-all for America’s political and cultural woes. In Colorado, Unite America gave roughly $4.7 million to support Proposition 131. The proposition’s individual backers included former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry, Walmart heir Ben Walton, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, video game magnate Marc Merrill, and Fox heiress Kathryn Murdoch.  

The same donor network showed up again in Nevada and Alaska. In Alaska, the 2024 campaign to keep RCV alive raised more than $12 million, while the campaign to end it raised barely $120,000. Unite America was again one of the top donors and was joined by Article IV, a Virginia-based nonprofit, and Action Now Initiative, a Texas-based “dark money” group funded by hedge fund manager John Arnold. Even with that 100-to-1 funding advantage provided by out-of-state groups, RCV was only able to hold on by less than one percent.  

Nevada followed the same pattern: the pro-Question 3 campaign was once again funded heavily by Article IV and Unite America. Interestingly, one of the leading donors to the anti-Question 3 campaign was the Nevada Alliance, another left-leaning group. Opposing RCV is becoming a bipartisan policy. 

RCV activists get around quite a lot. The top donor to the failed Rank MI Vote campaign, for example, was Doug Robbins, who was formerly a pro-RCV activist in Alaska before he packed up and began to champion the cause in Michigan. Robbins contributed $100,000 to the Rank MI Vote committee. It seems like RCV might need him back in Alaska before long, so only time will tell if he remains a Michigander long enough to try and put RCV on the ballot in 2028. 

It’s time to let RCV go into the light 

Voters don’t like RCV. Legislators don’t like RCV. RCV has been overwhelmingly rejected in nearly every state and territory where it has been on the ballot, which isn’t a complete political oddity. It doesn’t seem to have any meaningful grassroots support. So why does this pipedream keep sticking around? 

Because there are donors who want it. 

As with many seemingly popular political causes, the whole operation is little more than a few donors pulling the strings of an apparently wide array of groups. Together, these donors are keeping a long-since dead fad on life support when the humane thing to do would be to pull the plug.  

 

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/ranked-choice-voting-is-down-but-not-out/