It's a tricky example because the Republican was effectively the third party candidate in that election. But once you realize that, the spoiler effect is very easy to see; the Republicans would have mostly preferred the more centrist Democrat candidate over the progressive Independent candidate, and if they had strategically ranked the Democrat first on their ballots the Democrat would have won.

By voting honestly and putting their favorite candidate first, they screwed themselves over and threw away their vote, and were understandably bitter about it given that ranked choice is frequently claimed to solve this exact problem.

It's also maddening that a single mayoral election is apparently the slam dunk counterexample.

Meanwhile, Australia has been voting this way for a century. And over that time period, I think there have been fewer ugly paradoxes than in the US.