"A point being raised by democracy reform advocates is that Begich should have won despite having the weakest first choice support, based on the belief that more people may have preferred Begich instead of Peltola if Palin hadn’t run, which is kind of an alternative universe argument to make, and I personally find it strange to say that a more popular candidate spoiled an election for a less popular candidate."
A) It's not an alternative universe argument to make since we actually know the preference rankings and can determine if Begich was preferred by more voters to both Peltola and Palin. Based on the cast vote records from the AK SOS, Begich beats Peltola by 5% and beats Palin by 23% https://twitter.com/cinyc9/status/1568251916810915841
B) Is Palin the "more popular candidate" compared to Begich if Begich was preferred over Palin by a super-majority of voters (23% margin)? I find it hilarious that RCV supporters fall into the same trap as plurality supporters by prioritizing 1st place votes as indicators of popularity or worthy of more weight when any ranking scheme implicitly values all ranking orders as equal because true majority support is built on compromises from voters' preferred candidates. In the 2017 Minneapolis mayoral race, at a minimum Jacob Frey's victory was built on half of his votes being votes from voters ranking him 2-5 (his 57% victory was only 44% composed of 1st place rankings); he wasn't even elected until they got to the 5th round. Whether it's RCV or Condorcet tabulation, no matter how low the preference rankings are on a voter's ballot, it's all the same in the final round/count. So calling Palin "more popular" than Begich is falling into the same mindset that keeps us in the plurality mindset. BTW, the phenomenon of a "more popular candidate" spoiling an election for a "less popular candidate" is called "center squeeze" and is a well documented critique of RCV going back all the way to when it was called IRV.
"The key point of ranked-choice voting is finding the candidate that a full majority of voters prefer."
Obviously this isn't true because as noted above, the AK RCV election only told us one majority: the one where Peltola beat Palin. It ignores that Begich handily beat Palin (which confirms that Palin was the overall loser) but also ignored that Begich was majority preferred over Peltola (by even a larger margin than Peltola over Palin). This is a piece of sophism by RCV supporters; they can claim it because RCV forces through a candidate who gets 50%+ of the vote among a certain set of candidates, but it does so at the expense of at least one head to head matchup: the RCV winner versus the Condorcet winner (when they differ). Basically, the Condorcet winner beats the RCV winner in a head to head contest based on voter preferences, getting more than 50%+ of the votes, but since they don't win following the strict elimination rules of RCV, the Condorcet winner doesn't get elected, despite actually being the majority winner.
"However, for those who believe Begich should have won based on being the candidate with potentially the widest support, I’d like to challenge that assumption based on the political realities of the here and now."
Here you basically spend 400+ words saying that Begich shouldn't have a wider base of support than Peltola based on "political realities of the here and now", yet the election was held with voters living in the "political realities of the here and now" and more voters preferred Begich over Peltola based on actual votes cast. Look, I'm a Democrat and would prefer to live in a world where more people preferred the Democrat to all Republicans in all races, but adherence to democratic principles binds me to say that Begich is the winner based on democratic principles. Maybe one day a Democratic candidate will be the Condorcet candidate in Alaska, but it wasn't this election.
As you noted, proportional representation is the gold standard that we need to strive for, but defending RCV in the face of its obvious failure in electing the correct majority candidate in this race isn't standing up for democratic principles. Bad faith criticisms of RCV from Palin or a Tom Cotton type should be countered, but in this case, it was correct that a Republican should have been elected.
"A point being raised by democracy reform advocates is that Begich should have won despite having the weakest first choice support, based on the belief that more people may have preferred Begich instead of Peltola if Palin hadn’t run, which is kind of an alternative universe argument to make, and I personally find it strange to say that a more popular candidate spoiled an election for a less popular candidate."
A) It's not an alternative universe argument to make since we actually know the preference rankings and can determine if Begich was preferred by more voters to both Peltola and Palin. Based on the cast vote records from the AK SOS, Begich beats Peltola by 5% and beats Palin by 23% https://twitter.com/cinyc9/status/1568251916810915841
B) Is Palin the "more popular candidate" compared to Begich if Begich was preferred over Palin by a super-majority of voters (23% margin)? I find it hilarious that RCV supporters fall into the same trap as plurality supporters by prioritizing 1st place votes as indicators of popularity or worthy of more weight when any ranking scheme implicitly values all ranking orders as equal because true majority support is built on compromises from voters' preferred candidates. In the 2017 Minneapolis mayoral race, at a minimum Jacob Frey's victory was built on half of his votes being votes from voters ranking him 2-5 (his 57% victory was only 44% composed of 1st place rankings); he wasn't even elected until they got to the 5th round. Whether it's RCV or Condorcet tabulation, no matter how low the preference rankings are on a voter's ballot, it's all the same in the final round/count. So calling Palin "more popular" than Begich is falling into the same mindset that keeps us in the plurality mindset. BTW, the phenomenon of a "more popular candidate" spoiling an election for a "less popular candidate" is called "center squeeze" and is a well documented critique of RCV going back all the way to when it was called IRV.
"The key point of ranked-choice voting is finding the candidate that a full majority of voters prefer."
Obviously this isn't true because as noted above, the AK RCV election only told us one majority: the one where Peltola beat Palin. It ignores that Begich handily beat Palin (which confirms that Palin was the overall loser) but also ignored that Begich was majority preferred over Peltola (by even a larger margin than Peltola over Palin). This is a piece of sophism by RCV supporters; they can claim it because RCV forces through a candidate who gets 50%+ of the vote among a certain set of candidates, but it does so at the expense of at least one head to head matchup: the RCV winner versus the Condorcet winner (when they differ). Basically, the Condorcet winner beats the RCV winner in a head to head contest based on voter preferences, getting more than 50%+ of the votes, but since they don't win following the strict elimination rules of RCV, the Condorcet winner doesn't get elected, despite actually being the majority winner.
"However, for those who believe Begich should have won based on being the candidate with potentially the widest support, I’d like to challenge that assumption based on the political realities of the here and now."
Here you basically spend 400+ words saying that Begich shouldn't have a wider base of support than Peltola based on "political realities of the here and now", yet the election was held with voters living in the "political realities of the here and now" and more voters preferred Begich over Peltola based on actual votes cast. Look, I'm a Democrat and would prefer to live in a world where more people preferred the Democrat to all Republicans in all races, but adherence to democratic principles binds me to say that Begich is the winner based on democratic principles. Maybe one day a Democratic candidate will be the Condorcet candidate in Alaska, but it wasn't this election.
As you noted, proportional representation is the gold standard that we need to strive for, but defending RCV in the face of its obvious failure in electing the correct majority candidate in this race isn't standing up for democratic principles. Bad faith criticisms of RCV from Palin or a Tom Cotton type should be countered, but in this case, it was correct that a Republican should have been elected.