Kamala Harris’ Surprisingly Strong Polling in State Dems Lost for 60 Years

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris only trails Republican nominee former President Donald Trump by single digits in Alaska, a state that a Democratic presidential hopeful hasn’t won in six decades.

The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won Alaska was President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964—exactly 60 years ago. The GOP has won the state in every presidential election since then, carrying the state by comfortable double-digit margins in recent cycles.

Trump’s margin did shrink in Alaska between 2016 and 2020. In his first election against Hillary Clinton, he carried the state by nearly 15 points, but that went down to a lead of 10 points when he was up against President Joe Biden. Notably, Alaskans bucked Trump’s favored Senate and House candidates in the 2022 midterm election.

Democratic Representative Mary Peltola and anti-Trump GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski won their races despite Trump endorsing their opponents and campaigning against them. They were buoyed by Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, in which voters get to list and rank multiple options for each office on the ballot.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email on Saturday morning.

What the Alaska Poll Shows

New polling conducted by Alaska Survey Research from September 11 to 12, after the ABC News debate between Harris and Trump, showed the Democrat down by 5 points with likely voters in the northwestern state. Harris had the support of 42 percent of respondents, whereas Trump had the backing of 47 percent.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was running as an independent but endorsed Trump in late August, received 5 percent support. An additional 6 percent said they were still undecided. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they had watched the debate between Harris and Trump, with 52 percent saying Harris had won.

The poll included 1,254 likely Alaskan voters. The margin of error and confidence level were not posted with the results.

With ranked-choice voting, those who list Kennedy Jr. as their first choice could select Harris or Trump as their second choice on the ballot. Their votes would then be redistributed in a second round of counting, assuming Kennedy Jr. would be eliminated in the first round. Several other presidential hopefuls, including Libertarian contender Chase Oliver and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, have qualified to be on the ballot in Alaska.

Nate Silver Weighs In

Nate Silver, the founder of the Silver Bulletin polling analysis, shared the polling on Substack on Friday, noting that his model has been “bullish” on Harris’ chances of winning Alaska.

“LOL, Silver Bulletin model had been randomly bullish on D chances in Alaska even before this poll. Just 3 electoral votes so unlikely to matter, but 8th-highest state in our Voter Power Index (impact per marginal vote),” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Silver previously founded the prominent FiveThirtyEight polling analysis site, which is now owned by ABC News. He parted ways with ABC and FiveThirtyEight in 2023.

What National and Swing State Polling Shows

Nationally, Harris appears to be narrowly ahead of Trump. Silver’s polling average shows the vice president with 48.3 percent support compared to the former president’s 46.2 percent. FiveThirtyEight’s average shows Harris with 48.1 percent and Trump with 45.4 percent.

In the critical swing states, Harris narrowly leads Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to Silver’s average. Meanwhile, Trump leads in Georgia and Arizona, with the candidates tied in North Carolina and Nevada.

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight has Harris up by slim margins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. Trump is narrowly ahead in Arizona and Georgia, while FiveThirtyEight shows the candidates tied in North Carolina.