A state filing ties $1.5 million from Musk to Alaska's ranked-choice voting repeal

Alaska voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to scrap the state's top-four open primary and ranked-choice general election — and the repeal campaign has drawn money tied to Elon Musk, according to a campaign finance report filed with the state this month. The filing shows the Aurora Action Network gave $1 million to the repeal group Repeal Now on July 29, and identifies Musk as a "true source" of $1.5 million he had given Aurora on July 6.

The measure would undo Ballot Measure 2, which Alaska voters narrowly approved in 2020. It would end the system in which all candidates run on one primary ballot and the top four advance regardless of party, returning the state to closed partisan primaries and single-choice general elections. It would also strike several campaign-finance rules the 2020 measure enacted, including a requirement to disclose the true source of large contributions tied to independent-expenditure groups.

This is the second repeal attempt in two years. In 2024, an effort to undo the same system failed by 743 votes out of more than 320,000 — 49.88% to 50.12%, the narrowest ballot-measure result in state history. Supporters restarted almost immediately, and the measure qualified for this year's ballot. Its sponsors include Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, along with Judy Eledge of Anchorage and Ken McCarty of Eagle River.

Supporters and opponents made their cases at the lieutenant governor's public hearing July 27. Repeal Now treasurer Bethany Marcum told the hearing that ranked-choice voting "simply fails to deliver on the promises that were made to us" when the 2020 measure passed, and that it has created a range of other problems and voter concerns.

Juli Lucky argued the opposite — that Alaskans have long rejected party-controlled primaries. "Since the 1947 referendum that approved a blanket primary, Alaskan voters have consistently chosen to allow all voters to choose from all candidates," she said. Ranked-choice voting, she added, functions as a runoff "without an expensive, lower turnout second election."

The Musk contribution is a new twist on outside money's long presence in these fights — though it has mostly run the other way. In both the 2020 campaign that created the system and the 2024 effort to repeal it, the pro-ranked-choice side vastly outraised its opponents, largely on out-of-state contributions. A separate measure on the Aug. 18 primary ballot, Ballot Measure 1, would impose campaign contribution limits of $2,000 per cycle for individuals and $4,000 for groups; the state's official cost estimate for implementing it is $120,503.