Though Republicans are celebrating a trifecta win following the 2024 elections, the GOP also missed prime opportunities to expand their congressional majorities due to a partywide distrust and outright ban on ranked choice voting, according to the latter’s advocates.

Former Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck and Nick Troiano of Unite America are warning the GOP that they will have a “very tough year” in 2026, when Republicans prepare to defend 22 Senate seats. Senators could have had a far wider margin as a cushion than they currently hold, they added. 

Data from several close House and Senate races show that Democrats won their races not only by less than 50% but less than the number of votes that a conservative third-party candidate received. Had those states adopted ranked choice, election reform advocates said, Republicans could have netted more Senate wins in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada and House wins in Oregon and Ohio, advocates said. 

“Republicans could have a 56-vote majority in the Senate right now if these changes have been in place in those states,” Buck said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.

Some critics see it as undemocratic, arguing it’s a tool where a person who would never win in a head-to-head matchup can secure the position.

Under a ranked choice voting system, voters can pick multiple candidates in order of preference rather than just one. The candidate must receive a majority of first-choice votes to win or the votes are reallocated in runoff rounds to eliminate competitors until one secures a majority. 

However, Republicans have historically been distrustful of the system after several GOP candidates failed to flip seats they thought were easily winnable — due to the ballot system often splitting support between two or more candidates. Many GOP-controlled states have preemptively banned the practice altogether.

In Colorado, voters last November rejected a proposal to implement ranked choice voting statewide. Democratic and Republican parties opposed the measure, which businessman Kent Thiry and Troiano’s Unite America backed.  

Groups like Unite America, which are devoted to nonpartisan election changes, are hoping that getting the word out about the benefit of ranked choice voting would get more Republicans on board for open primaries and general elections.

“I believe opposition to these reforms are short-sighted,” Troiano said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Parties have reflexively opposed things that create uncertainty for them because it’s a change from the status quo, and they overlook the potential benefits that they could find in these reforms to becoming more competitive.”

States shoot down ranked choice voting

Eight states in the 2024 cycle voted on ballot initiatives related to ranked choice voting. Alaska’s measure sought to repeal the voting system, while Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, and Washington, D.C.’s proposals would establish the system. 

While close to 7 million people voted in favor of the election reform, only Washington approved the measure in 2024.

Despite the results, Troiano said the movement made progress.

“We feel that the movement itself made tremendous progress this year in terms of building awareness, support, and infrastructure for the future,” he said.

Idaho’s voters rejected the measure overwhelmingly, with 69.6% of voters selecting “no” on Proposition 1, followed by South Dakota, where 65.6% of voters rejected Amendment H. The state that came closest to adopting was Montana, narrowly reaching a majority of 51.1% “no” votes.

However, some Montana Republicans are just fine with the outcome.

“I hate it,” Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana told the Washington Examiner when asked his thoughts on ranked choice voting. “We were smart enough to reject it.”

“In winner takes all, you can have a person that gets the least amount of votes and win, and all’s it is is a tool that manipulates so a minority can win a seat,” Zinke said. “To me, it’s undemocratic.”

‘Spoiler’ situations?

Pushing back, Troiano and Buck both pointed to “spoiler” situations in the 2024 elections that could have bolstered Republicans in the Senate, where they hold a comfortable but small majority, and the House, where the majority is slim to none.

With an incoming Trump administration, Republicans will find it easy to pass some of President-elect Donald Trump’s policies — but any detraction or infighting, particularly in the House, could stall key pieces of legislation.

In Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Trump won, but Democrats secured Senate races — not only by less than 50% but less than the number of votes siphoned off by a conservative third-party candidate. 

Senator-elect Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, won in Michigan with a 0.3% margin of victory, but the Libertarian candidate, Joseph Solis-Mullen, got 1%. Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada, won reelection by 1.7%, but the two third-party candidates, independent Janine Hansen and Libertarian Chris Cunningham, received 1.5% and 1.4%, respectively. In Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, won another term by a 0.9% margin but conservative independent candidate Phil Anderson got 1.3%.

Had ranked choice voting been in place in those three states, Troiano and Buck argue voters who selected the conservative third party candidate as their first choice would likely have picked the Republican candidate — and therefore beat Baldwin, Rosen, or Slotkin.

“This year’s margin was critical, and it could have been 56 to 44, and not getting those extra seats this year may very well hurt the Trump agenda come 2026,” Buck said.

Ken Buck: ‘Republicans are giving away seats’

In the House, two of the closest races — that of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio, and now-ousted Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican from Ohio, decided by a lesser margin than the amount siphoned by a third party. 

“The third party candidates are impacting the races, and it’s not that they shouldn’t be able to run. It’s just that if you look at the margin, the difference, there’s a good chance that Marcy (Kaptur) would not have won that race,” Buck said. “If the Libertarian candidate’s votes had been split between the Republican and the Democrat based on preference, the Republican would have probably won that race.”

“So, Republicans are giving away seats right now with their opposition to these reforms,” added Buck, who resigned early from his fifth House term in part citing the level of infighting within the Republican Party.

Troiano said he believes Republicans should start to entertain ranked choice voting as the next big change in a line of electoral changes, starting with the movement decades ago to replace “old smoke-filled rooms” with direct primaries.

“That reform push was a function of both outside reformers demanding a more democratic election system and people within the parties that realized that current method of candidate nomination was no longer working,” Troiano said.

Alaska keeps ranked choice — and votes in a Republican 

For the first time in history, Republicans can point to a ranked choice voting success story.

Representative-elect Nick Begich of Alaska is the first Republican to be elected to Congress under the ranked choice voting system. Alaska’s current senators, both Republican, entered office before ranked choice voting was implemented in 2022 for the first time.

Begich beat out incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, who benefited from ranked choice voting in both the special and general elections in 2022 to become the first Democrat to represent Alaska in 50 years.

Prior to his election, Begich told the Washington Examiner he did not support ranked choice voting and backed repealing it. Though he benefitted from the system, Begich still is not in favor of Alaska keeping it because he believes most voters simply do not understand the system.

Though ranked choice voting could have allocated third-party votes to GOP and guaranteed a victory, that does depend on whether voters who selected an independent as their first choice decided to rank a second choice. Begich argued that the system can falter under “ballot exhaustion.”

“A lot of Alaskans are just saying, ‘I’m not participating in it, I’m not going to do it,’” Begich said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “And some of that is because some people understand that they don’t need to if they’re ranking me, and there’s no other Republican, but some of its people saying, ‘I’m just not going to do it, I’m ranking one, and that’s it.’ They don’t understand the system.”

He said Alaska Republicans saw success in 2024 because they had “party discipline” — unlike in 2022, when support was split between Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin. Begich acknowledged the potential of gaining seats in Congress under ranked choice voting, but, he added, “that’s true only if there’s not more than one Republican in the general election.”

Buck said more advocacy groups and current and former lawmakers need to prioritize positive messaging on ranked choice voting, as well as exposing Democratic spending in GOP primaries or general races, adding that many voters remain confused as to how open primaries and preference ranking could — as supporters have argued — promise a unified country.

“The Democrats aren’t just spending that in supporting their candidate or tearing down the opponent, they are spending resources in supporting candidates that will say who will siphon off votes from Republicans,” Buck said. “I think as that message gets out more clearly, the rational response will overcome the emotional response, and we will see more and more Republican support for these measures.”

Troiano added that Republicans should approach ranked choice voting with an “open mind,” given that the largest electorate of voters are independents and are often “locked out’ of primaries, depending on the state.

“Republican opposition to these reforms has oftentimes fed right into the Democratic Party’s intent to continue to game the current system,” Troiano said. “And so I think this should be a time for some re-examination of that.”