Usually ranked choice voting boosts the vote for minor party candidates. That was true in Maine in both 2020 and 2022. But in Alaska in 2022, it didn’t seem to help minor parties.

The only minor party candidate for a statewide office who survived the top-four primary was Chris Bye, Libertarian for U.S. House. He had placed fifth in the primary, and thus did not originally qualify for the November ballot. But when one of the candidates who had qualified dropped out, Bye advanced. However, in the general election, he got 1.73% of the first choice votes.

In the past, Libertarians running for U.S. House in Alaska have recently done far better than that. These are the percentages for the Libertarian for U.S. House in all past Alaska elections: 2000 1.76%; 2002 1.67%; 2004 2.39%; 2006 1.72%; 2012 5.20%; 2014 7.65%; 2016 10.35%. In all these instances, both major parties had a candidate.

The Alaskan Independence Party candidates for statewide offices were all kept off the general election ballot, due to failing to place high enough in the primary. They had tried in the gubernatorial race and the U.S. Senate race. Libertarians were also kept off the ballot in all the statewide races other than U.S. House.

In the legislative races, there were no races with more than four candidates filing for the primary, so the top-four system didn’t have any restrictive effect. In the general election for legislature, when ranked choice voting was in existence, there was no legislative race with a minor party candidate in which the winner received less than 50% with first place votes, so no second choice votes were counted.