Comment by snailmailman

To clarify a bit for those unfamiliar with ranked-choice. The voters rank their choices for the candidates. The “decoy” candidate is almost certainly going to be eliminated before the actual republican candidate. They will be eliminated and those voters’ votes will move to their next choice. Anybody confused at the voting booth can just write both names as their first and second choice. And when the “decoy” candidate loses, those people’s votes transfer to their second choice and the problem solves itself. The decoy gets removed from the ballot but the votes don’t. They will just move to the voters’ next choice, presumably the other Dan Sullivan.