Also, if my example seemed too abstract, let's imagine a real-world presidential election using IRV in a red state like West Virginia. In 2020, Trump got about

Also, if my example seemed too abstract, let's imagine a real-world presidential election using IRV in a red state like West Virginia. In 2020, Trump got about 70% of the vote. Now suppose Mitt Romney ran as well in a three-way race against Trump and Biden. Since Romney is also a Republican, then it's likely some of the Trump voters would've ranked him first, but most of the Democrats would've still preferred Biden. But since Romney is more moderate than Trump, the Democratic voters would probably still prefer him over Trump. Now the results might look like this: 45% of voters rank Trump 1st, Romney 2nd, Biden 3rd 25% of voters rank Romney 1st, Trump 2nd, Biden 3rd 30% of voters rank Biden 1st, Romney 2nd, Trump 3rd This seems like a fairly plausible real-world situation, and it also seems pretty easy to imagine how Democrats could look at the polling numbers and realize that Biden is never going to win in their state, and that ranking Romney 1st is their only chance to stop Trump.