The good news keeps on rolling for Mary Peltola in her race against US Sen. Dan Sullivan.
After a fisheries debate in which Sullivan was caught peeking at Peltola’s answer during a lightning round, a new poll shows she has a solid lead over the Republican incumbent. The poll, commissioned by AARP, found that Peltola is expected to lead throughout the state’s ranked-choice election process, finishing with a 53-47 win that could determine the balance of power in the US Senate.
The poll was conducted between Sept. 8 and 11, before Sullivan’s gaffe caught fire on social media, and contacted 800 likely voters with a reported margin of error of +/-3.5%.
Importantly, the polling simulated the state’s ranked-choice voting system, in which voters can rank candidates by preference. Those rankings come into play if no candidate gets a majority: the worst-performing candidate is eliminated at the end of each round, and their votes are redistributed according to the voters’ second- and third-place rankings. That continues until a candidate reaches a majority of the votes.
According to the poll, Peltola is expected to get 46% of the vote in the first round of voting, compared with Sullivan’s 41%. Republican Dan J. Sullivan, a Petersburg resident who Republicans have expended an enormous amount of energy painting as a decoy, is expected to get 4%, and far-right Republican Gerald Heikes is expected to get 3%, while the remaining 7% are undecided.
It’s important to note that while the total votes for Republican candidates outnumber those for Peltola, most Dan J. Sullivan and Heikes voters opted not to rank any candidates. Only a third of Heikes’ votes went to Sen. Sullivan, and a little more than 20% of Dan J. Sullivan’s voters ranked Sen. Sullivan, while 15% ranked Peltola.
In the final ranking, with 11% of voters undecided or declining to rank Peltola or Sullivan, Peltola would win the race with 53% of the remaining votes to Sullivan’s 47%.
The results suggest that convincing Republican voters to embrace the ranked-choice voting system could boost Sen. Sullivan—coordinated campaigning is proven to be effective in ranked-choice elections—but that’s going to be a difficult needle to thread given that conservatives have also spent the last several election cycles complaining about the system and trying, unsuccessfully, to repeal it.
This year’s general election Ballot Measure 2 would repeal the state’s election system in its entirety. The anti-ranked-choice voting messaging has also been particularly prominent this year, thanks in large part to a $1.5 million cash infusion from Elon Musk.
But Sullivan’s problems clearly go beyond the state’s election system.
According to the poll, he’s simply not as strong a candidate as Peltola.
The polling found that Peltola’s net favorability was +6, with positive reviews from nearly every voter category except Trump 2024 voters and Republicans. Sullivan, meanwhile, is underwater, with a net favorability of -4. He’s underwater with voters under 50 (-18), independents (-27), women (-16), white voters (-4), Alaska Native voters (-10), and swing voters over 50 (-5).
And the issues Alaskans care about, according to the poll, don’t do Sullivan and the Trump regime any favors.
Rising prices and affordability are the top priority for 42% of voters. It’s the most important issue across every demographic except among voters over 65. Voters over 65 cited “threats to democracy” as their top issue, only slightly edging out their concerns about affordability. For those worried about affordability, groceries and gasoline were top issues across the board, while voters under 35 also felt strongly about housing affordability.
The polling period also overlapped with a sharp rise in diesel prices due to Trump’s war in Iran, which Sullivan has been an outspoken supporter of. Trump said last week that he didn’t expect fuel prices to come down until after the midterms, while analysts warn that fuel prices could get much worse very quickly.
According to AAA’s gas price tracker, diesel has been hitting new record highs nearly every day. On Monday, Sept. 21, the average price for a gallon of diesel in Alaska was $6.66, while a gallon of regular gasoline averages $5.06.
In total, the polling suggests that Peltola’s 8-point lead over Sullivan in the state’s Aug. 18 open primary wasn’t a fluke.
Still, Peltola said at the Sept. 12 Kodiak fisheries debate that no one should take the race for granted.
“This election is not a slam dunk. This is not a sure thing. This race is neck and neck,” she said. “My deadline is Nov. 3. Nov. 3 is the day we need to remember to get out and vote across our state.”
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 Bluesky.
