Rep. Peltola Is the Most Popular Politician in Alaska. She Still Faces a Tight Race
New Data for Progress polling finds U.S. Representative Mary Peltola with the highest approval of any of Alaska’s top elected officials. Even so, November’s ranked-choice election is a toss-up.
Among Alaska’s Congressional Delegation and House Candidates, Representative Peltola Is Most Favorable
When asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Alaska’s top elected officials, 51% of voters have a favorable opinion of Peltola, compared with 41% unfavorable, for a +10 net favorability. This is higher net favorability than the other members of Alaska’s congressional delegation, Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, with +3 and +2 net favorability, respectively.
Peltola’s election opponents are also viewed less favorably. Nick Begich’s favorability is 40% favorable, 40% unfavorable, and 20% haven’t heard enough to say. Nancy Dahlstrom, currently Alaska’s lieutenant governor, is even more unknown, coming in at 14% favorable, 21% unfavorable, and 65% haven’t heard enough to say.
The Alaska House Race Is a Toss-Up
The November election for Alaska’s House seat will be conducted using ranked-choice voting, where voters will be asked to rank four candidates.
The poll presented a hypothetical set of four likely candidates (Peltola, Begich, Dahlstrom, and Chris Bye), and voters were asked to rank them each from 1-4, as they will do in November.
Even eight months out from the election, only 8% of voters respond that they aren’t sure how they will rank their choices, and the results foretell a very tight race. In the poll’s hypothetical ranked-choice election, Bye is eliminated first, then Dahlstrom, leaving Peltola and Begich in a true toss-up at 50% each. (See the end of this post for a full round-by-round breakdown.)
Rep. Peltola’s Positions Are Popular With Alaskans, Especially Around Food Security
Peltola has been one of the most vocal members of Congress against the planned merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons. As she wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which eventually sued to block the merger, “Alaska already has an incredibly concentrated grocery store market, and potential divestments of stores resulting from the merger would threaten both competition and basic food security in many communities across the state.”
A Data for Progress poll released last week finds Peltola’s stance is very popular across Alaska: Almost two-thirds (64%) of voters think the Kroger-Albertsons merger should be blocked, including 69% of Independents and 56% of Republicans.
Furthermore, the poll finds that opposition to the merger only strengthens when voters are presented with arguments for and against the merger. After messaging, 68% of voters think the merger should be blocked, compared with only 25% who think the merger should be allowed. This movement comes largely from outside of Anchorage — for example, messaging takes the percentage of Fairbanks North Star Borough voters who think the merger should be blocked from 60% to 66%. These results suggest that, as the merger is in the news and Peltola and the FTC continue to oppose it, Alaskan voters will only be further on their side.
Subsistence fishing is also a vital part of food security for many Alaskans, and in 2022 Peltola ran a “pro-fish” campaign based on protecting it. As part of this advocacy, she has vigorously opposed industrial predatory and foreign trawl fishing, securing, for example, an executive order combating predatory foreign trawlers. The poll finds wide support for banning trawling in general: Two-thirds of voters (67%) think the federal government should ban trawling in waters off the coast of Alaska.
This polling demonstrates that, on the back of popular policy positions, Rep. Peltola’s favorability surpasses that of fellow members of Alaska’s congressional delegation and opponents in her race for reelection to the House. Nevertheless, this race is likely to be very close come November.
Ranked-Choice Results Round-by-Round
In the initial ranking results of the poll’s hypothetical ranked-choice election, 8% of voters indicate they are not sure of any of their rankings.
After disregarding respondents who indicated only “Not sure”, Peltola is well out in front in the first round, garnering 47% of voters’ top rankings.
After eliminating Bye, round 2 results look like this:
And after eliminating Dahlstrom, most of her vote share is distributed to fellow Republican Begich, and the final-round poll results show Peltola and Begich in a true toss-up at 50% each:
Survey Methodology
From February 23 to March 2, 2024, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,120 likely voters in Alaska using SMS and web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.