Video surging 100x the video's usual pace

Strassel questions Alaska's "yes to repeal" ranked-choice ballot

A Potomac Watch clip revisits the narrowly defeated repeal measure and Strassel's account of voters misunderstanding their choice.

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Wall Street Journal Opinion Story of November 2, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video is running at 71,772 views a day, 100 times its usual pace (718).

Alaska’s Mistake Approving Ranked Choice Voting

Voting "no" meant keeping the very system some Alaskans wanted to remove. That is the ballot-wording problem Kimberley Strassel highlights in a Wall Street Journal Opinion clip that has suddenly drawn a much larger audience.

"Alaska's Mistake Approving Ranked Choice Voting" added roughly 72,000 views in a day, around a hundred times its usual daily pace. Published three days ago, the Potomac Watch excerpt focuses on the unsuccessful 2024 effort to repeal Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, rather than a new election result.

Strassel, a Wall Street Journal columnist, explains that opponents of the system needed to vote "yes" on the repeal initiative. A "no" vote preserved it. She recounts exit-poll anecdotes about voters who opposed ranked-choice voting but selected "no," believing that expressed their opposition.

"Well, they had just voted by accident to keep it in place," she says.

The distinction matters to her argument: the title criticizes Alaska's adoption of ranked-choice voting, but the clip itself concentrates on how the later attempt to undo it was worded. Strassel points to the close result and those anecdotes; she does not establish how many ballots were affected by misunderstanding.

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