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Wednesday, August 17, 2022

POLITICO NIGHTLY: The impeachment revenge tour’s unexpected fallout

Sen. Lisa Murkowski walks to the Senate chamber for a vote. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

SAVED BY THE BALLOT — For House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, the 2022 primaries have been a bloodbath. Four of the 10 lost their primaries. Another four decided against running again. Just two made it to the November ballot.

The two primary season survivors, Reps. David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington, have something in common — both ran in states that use a top-two primary system rather than traditional partisan primaries. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump but advanced to the general election Tuesday night, was also the beneficiary of an alternative primary format. Her survival in Tuesday’s election was almost certainly due to a top-four ranked choice voting initiative that passed in 2020. (We’re still waiting for results from Alaska’s special election to fill late Republican Rep. Don Young’s seat; the election will likely come down to Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Mary Peltola.)

At a time of rising political polarization and growing frustration with the two-party system , Trump’s impeachment revenge tour has put these alternative voting systems in the national spotlight.

It’s clear that voters are fed up and ready for serious change. This July, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that 58 percent of voters believe our democracy needs “major reforms” or “a complete overhaul.” New ways of voting for our elected representatives promise a more accurate representation of the will of the people — or at the very least a fighting chance for politicians who don’t gravitate toward extremes.

“Candidates who do well in ranked choice elections tend to be those who connect with the widest group of voters possible,” said Deb Otis, the director of research at FairVote, an advocacy organization focused on electoral reform. “Our current elections often appeal to only one niche base of voters.”

Otis’ organization has taken up the cause of ranked choice voting, a system gaining traction around the country that will get a big test in Alaska’s Senate race in November, where Murkowski and her Trump-backed GOP challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, and two other candidates will face off.

The system is fairly simple: You rank your preferred candidates in order. After all of the ballots are cast, the candidate with the lowest first-place vote total is eliminated, and the remaining candidates divvy up their second-place votes. This continues until one candidate reaches a majority of votes.

According to Jeanne Massey, an RCV advocate based in Minneapolis (where the city has held RCV elections since 2009), the system can quickly usher in a new era of politics.

“It immediately changed three things [in Minneapolis]: who decided to run, how campaigns were run and who could be elected.”

As Massey tells it, candidates are forced to run more positive, honest campaigns, because they want second- and third-place votes in open elections with more participants. The system can also deliver surprising results. In Maine — which passed an RCV ballot initiative in 2016 — Democrat Jared Golden defeated Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin in the largely rural 2nd Congressional District by the slimmest of margins in 2018. He did so thanks to ranked choice voting — while Golden was trailing by about 2,000 votes on election night, the second-choice votes of independents broke toward Golden, giving him a final victory of over 3,000 votes.

Murkowski is hoping that Alaskans can similarly coalesce around her as a moderate alternative to Tshibaka. She’s looked to attract a cocktail of moderate Republicans, Democrats and independents in order to win in a red state.

“It’s easier for moderate and centrist candidates to do better under these alternative primary methods because it makes the candidates accountable to all voters, instead of just primary voters from one party,” said Otis.

This November, as Alaskans use ranked choice voting to determine their next senator, another state may be added to the RCV roster. A ballot measure in Nevada will ask voters in the key swing state whether they want to establish a top-five RCV format similar to Alaska’s. A recent poll found voters in favor by a 15-percentage-point margin.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh.

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WHAT'D I MISS?

— Ousted Florida prosecutor sues DeSantis over suspension: Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren today filed a federal lawsuit arguing Gov. Ron DeSantis abused his power when suspending him from office over, among other things, a pledge to not prosecute women who violate Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban. DeSantis detractors immediately condemned Warren’s Aug. 4 suspension as political overreach and targeting a political foe. The governor characterized Warren’s suspension as removing a progressive prosecutor who refused to enforce laws.

— Pence ‘would consider’ testifying to Jan. 6 committee: Former Vice President Mike Pence hasn’t ruled out testifying before the Jan. 6 select committee investigating efforts by his former boss and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “If there was an invitation to participate, I would consider it,” Pence told a packed room at an event this morning. The Jan. 6 panel has weighed whether to formally seek Pence’s testimony for months.

— CDC director orders agency overhaul, admitting flawed Covid-19 response: The CDC is launching an overhaul of its structure and operations in an attempt to modernize the agency and rehabilitate its reputation following intense criticism of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and, more recently, the growing monkeypox outbreak. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky today shared a series of changes with CDC leadership and staff designed to “transform” the organization and its work culture by improving how the agency shares information, develops public health guidance and communicates with the American public.

— Groups to sue Florida Medicaid program over ban on gender-affirming care: A coalition of transgender-rights organizations is preparing to sue Florida to stop the state’s Medicaid regulator from banning coverage of treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapies or surgical procedures for gender dysphoria. Simone Criss, director of the Southern Legal Counsel’s Transgender Rights Initiative, said today the coalition is expecting to file the case in federal court and will seek a preliminary injunction to halt the ban, which takes effect on Sunday, from going forward.

— Planned Parenthood to spend a record $50 million in midterms: The money will be used to elect abortion access advocates and surpasses the $45 million the group committed to in 2020. Planned Parenthood has identified Georgia, Nevada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin as 2022 targets.

AROUND THE WORLD

CRIMEA CO-SIGN — Attacking Crimea is fair game for Ukraine — and it has America’s support to hit the Russians there, writes Alex Ward.

Kyiv was behind the three explosions this past week on the Russian-annexed peninsula, per a CNN-obtained Ukrainian government document, including a large blast at Saki airbase that destroyed several of Moscow’s warplanes.

No Ukrainian official has yet publicly admitted to Kyiv’s involvement in the Crimea campaign. But Defense Minister Oleksii Rezikov told Voice of America today that Ukraine hasn’t ruled out striking the occupied territory with U.S.-provided weapons.

And a senior U.S. administration official told POLITICO the U.S. supports strikes on Crimea if Kyiv deems them necessary. “We don’t select targets, of course, and everything we’ve provided is for self-defense purposes. Any target they choose to pursue on sovereign Ukrainian soil is by definition self defense,” this person said.

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NIGHTLY NUMBER

$650 million

The amount in damages awarded today to two Ohio counties that won a landmark lawsuit against national pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens and Walmart , claiming the way they distributed opioids to customers caused severe harm to communities and created a public nuisance. The judge said the money will be used to abate a continuing opioid crisis in Lake and Trumbull counties, outside Cleveland.

PARTING WORDS

NASA's Space Launch System rocket with the Orion spacecraft in Cape Canaveral, Florida. | Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images

GIANT LEAP — NASA is preparing to launch its first moon mission to pave the way for returning astronauts to the lunar surface — this time to stay.

Now all they have to do is find someone to run it, writes Bryan Bender.

Just three years from now, NASA plans to begin regularly rotating astronauts to the lunar surface to establish a base for scientific research and extract water and other resources to live and make fuel — all in preparation for sending humans to Mars. The series of increasingly complex missions is known as the Artemis program.

But there’s little sign of a solid plan. Dan Dumbacher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the former head of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission, warned Congress this spring that NASA’s “piecemeal, uncoordinated approach is doomed to failure.”

And he’s not alone. A number of agency insiders, veterans and oversight authorities are sounding the alarm ahead of the maiden launch of the Space Launch System, the biggest rocket ever built, and the Orion capsule that are set to blast off in late August.

Congress this month passed a NASA policy bill, the first in five years, that requires the agency to swiftly set up a dedicated Artemis program office to manage a host of increasingly complex programs. Still, “three years is not a lot of time,” said Patricia Sanders, chair of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. And though NASA has set an aggressive course in its return to the moon, it remains to be seen whether all of the pieces can fit together.

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