On Thursday night, Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced his veto of a bipartisan education bill that called for the largest increase in public school funding in state history. On Friday, pollsters were out in the field.
In a decisive result, the poll found a whopping 70% of Alaskans opposed the veto and would be more likely to support a legislator who helps override it at the joint session scheduled for Monday afternoon. The polling was conducted by Hays Research Group on behalf of the Alaska AFL-CIO, surveying 604 Alaska voters with a self-reported margin of error of +/- 4%.
“Recently, the Alaska Legislature accomplished a historic feat,” said AFL-CIO President Joell Hall in a prepared statement accompanying the poll’s release. “They worked together across party lines to pass desperately needed funding for Alaska schools. And yet, the Governor vetoed that funding because it failed to include his unvetted and unproven policies. A poll conducted after the veto shows that Alaskans agree with lawmakers. This data highlights that Alaskans overwhelmingly oppose the Governor’s action and will support lawmakers who override his veto.”
Senate Bill 140 would increase the base student allocation by $680 per student, amounting to roughly $174 million in additional annual funding for public schools. The legislation also calls for increased home school funding, increased funding for students who need help reading and a new statewide position to help people navigate the process of creating new charter school programs.
The governor vetoed it after legislators refused to pass a second education bill that contained the governor’s demand for a $180 million study on teacher bonuses as well as changes that would have allowed the Board of Education to unilaterally create new charter programs without input from the local communities that would be responsible for operating them.
According to the polling, 70% of Alaskans either strongly or somewhat opposed the veto, while just 23% supported it. According to the cross tabs, Democratic opposition to the veto is the highest, with 91% of Democrats opposing the veto. Independent voters are similarly against the veto, with 72% opposed. Republicans are somewhat split, with 53% supporting the veto and 41% opposing it.
While the governor and his proxies have reportedly threatened on-the-fence legislators with well-funded challengers if they vote in favor of an override, the polling suggests that legislators face substantial risk with the voters if they don’t.
According to the polling, 71% of respondents to the survey said a legislator supporting the override would make them more likely to support their re-election. Just 19% said overriding would hurt their support. Like with the veto, the cross tabs show different opinions depending on the voter. Democrats are far more likely to support a legislator who votes for the override (93%) than Republicans (38%).
Still, with the change to open primaries and ranked-choice voting, legislators’ political futures are no longer driven by the semi-closed partisan primaries of the past. The new system requires candidates to have broader appeal across the political spectrum, and many of the more moderate Republicans in the Legislature are there because they defeated a far-right challenger in the 2022 elections.
Monday’s joint session is at 2:15 p.m.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.