Trump wants Lisa Murkowski gone. A voting reform might save her.

Donald Trump’s victory in Alaska in 2020 extended a half-century run for Republican presidential nominees in that state. But at the same time, Alaska’s voters also approved a ballot measure that is now complicating the defeated president’s revenge campaign against GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump over the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol. 

The measure, which passed by a narrow margin, replaced party primaries in Alaska with a single open primary. The top four vote-getters will proceed to a November election with ranked choice voting, in which voters list candidates in order of preference for runoff rounds if none wins a majority.

Other states have adopted open primaries and ranked-choice elections, but Alaska is the first to combine them. Proponents say the reforms should boost politicians who work across party lines, since they no longer have to cater to their party’s base to win the primary. If adopted more widely, advocates say the system could serve as an antidote to partisan polarization and government gridlock. 

“It encourages candidates to talk to all constituents and to build a broad coalition and to serve them,” says Robert Dillon, a Republican consultant who worked on the Alaska ballot measure.  

Senator Murkowski, the daughter of a former Republican senator and governor, has never been beloved by Alaska’s conservatives. She famously lost the GOP primary in 2010, but went on to wage a successful write-in campaign in the general election, with support from independents and some Democrats. After her impeachment vote against former President Trump last year, Alaska’s Republican Party voted to censure her.

But this year, she won’t have to face a challenger in a Republican primary. Instead, her Trump-endorsed rival, Kelly Tshibaka, a former state official, will need to win more votes in a ranked-choice election, which will include non-Republican voters. 

Critics of Alaska’s reforms say they will weaken parties and confuse voters who rely on parties as identifiers to fill out their ballots. Alaska’s Supreme Court was scheduled to hold a hearing on Jan. 18 in an appeal case filed by plaintiffs who sued unsuccessfully last year to stop the changes on constitutional grounds. A ruling is expected by next month. 

“Parties are an efficient way for people of identical or similar political beliefs to gather together. I think the political party system has to be made stronger rather than weaker,” says Kenneth Jacobus, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who include the Alaskan Independence Party. 

Even reform advocates say it will likely take multiple elections to see the true effect on who runs for office and how the winning candidate governs, making a stampede to the political center somewhat unlikely for now. And analysts caution that the centrifugal forces driving Americans apart, and poisoning the political well, aren’t easily unwound. 

“It takes many cycles to see what these things will produce,” says Alexander Theodoridis, an associate professor of politics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. “None are a panacea for party polarization.”

In Virginia, Republicans used ranked choice voting last year to select statewide candidates for executive office. Nominee Glenn Youngkin, a former businessman, went on to capture the governorship in a state that had voted for President Joe Biden by 10 points. Governor Youngkin’s victory shows that Republicans can win in swing states – or even Democratic ones – if they nominate candidates who appeal more broadly than a pro-Trump firebrand would, says Mr. Dillon. “He was the candidate who represented the majority of Republicans in Virginia, and he was able to beat a Democrat in a state we thought we’d never win again because he had a broad consensus.” 

Similarly, Democrats in New York City used ranked choice voting in their primary last year to nominate Eric Adams, a former police officer who ran to the right of his progressive rivals. Mr. Adams took office this month as the city’s 110th mayor. 

In the case of Virginia, where GOP delegates held a virtual convention, it’s possible Mr. Youngkin could have won a traditional primary. But the lack of a party primary almost certainly made it harder for an “extreme Trump-y” candidate to win, says Professor Theodoridis. “You had to have a broad base of support. You weren’t going to win with 25 or 30% and everyone else against you,” he says. 

Alaska is just the second state after Maine to adopt ranked choice voting for general elections, joining dozens of smaller jurisdictions. But the state’s open, top-four primary, which expands similar measures used in California and Washington, may prove a more consequential reform. Several states plan to hold ballot initiatives this year to put similar reforms to voters. 

Advocates say open primaries are essential to expanding voter choice, since most congressional seats are so politically lopsided due to geographic sorting and gerrymandering that only the primary matters. According to Unite America, a nonprofit that campaigns for electoral reform, 83% of congressional races in 2020 were decided by primaries in which only 23 million people voted.

Senator Murkowski, the only GOP senator up for reelection this year who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, will be on the ballot not only with fellow Republicans but also Democrats and other hopefuls. “It’s all the flavors of the bakery served up for everyone to choose from,” says Jim Lottsfeldt, a consultant who is running a Murkowski super-PAC. 

Mr. Trump has made clear what flavor he prefers. “Kelly Tshibaka is the candidate who can beat Murkowski – and she will. Kelly is a fighter who stands for Alaska values and America First,” he said in a statement last year. That puts him at odds with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is backing Senator Murkowski. 

Still, the biggest impact of Alaska’s electoral reforms may be in Juneau, where state policymaking has been gummed up by partisanship, says Jason Grenn, executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections. A majority of voters in Alaska identify as independent or nonpartisan and want to see their state government tackle practical issues, not wage partisan warfare, he says. 

Mr. Grenn saw for himself the power of party affiliation when he served a term as an independent state representative. Lawmakers who might have joined forces on issues fretted over a possible primary challenge if they crossed a party line. 

An open primary “changes the incentives for politicians – who [will be] rewarded for working across the aisle and finding solutions to problems, as opposed to being punished for working with Democrats if you’re a Republican,” he says. “We have do something that can lower the temperature in the room.”