Are RCV donors done?
by Trent England
Ranked-choice voting is political snake oil. Are you upset about elections? Politics? Governance? According to the salesmen, take a swig of RCV and all will be well.
It was always preposterous, but desperate people do desperate things. Miracle cures often do sell—at least until people catch on. The failure of Rank MI Vote in Michigan suggests that some of the biggest donors previously funding RCV may have done exactly that.
In 2024, more than $100 million poured into pro-RCV campaigns. Much of this came from just a few left-leaning billionaires: Kathryn Murdoch, Katherine Gehl, and John Arnold. Murdoch and her Unite America group oppose the political party structure. Gehl and her Institute for Political Innovation claim that adding more candidates to general election contests (they want five) would result in more moderate elected officials. Arnold Ventures has repeated claims that RCV encourages coalition building and better engages voters.
Whatever their reasons, they spent big on RCV. Yet despite massively outspending opponents, they lost almost everywhere. Voters rejected RCV measures in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon. Voters also banned RCV in Missouri (adding it to a growing list of states that prohibit RCV, shown in the map on our homepage). In Alaska, RCV barely survived a repeal effort. Only DC adopted RCV, with it bundled into a larger package of election reforms.
The Rank MI Vote campaign likely hoped it would be the next recipient of RCV campaign cash. It appears that never happened, and it’s hardly surprising after so much failure. Perhaps donors have also noticed that even where RCV is used, the results fail to live up to the hype (unless you think New York City is a model of moderation, or Oakland, California an example of effective governance). Either way, voters can be thankful if some of the biggest donors are moving on from RCV.