Know Your 2024 Electoral College: Alaska (3 Electoral Votes)
Topic: Elections
ALASKA
Basic Election Facts
2024 Electoral Votes: 3
Population (2020 Census): 733,391 (+23,160 since 2010)
Likely Population at 2024 Election: 735,000
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Partisanship
Governor Party: Republican
State House Majority: Republican
State House Majority: Republican
U.S. House Delegation: 1 Democrat
U.S. Senate Delegation: 2 Republicans
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Ethnic Demographics (2020 census)
White: 59.4%
Native: 15.6%
Latino: 7.3%
Other: 17.7%
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Presidential History since 1960
Times Republican: 15
Last: Donald Trump, 2020, +10.1%
Times Democrat: 1
Last: Lyndon Johnson, 1964, +31.8%
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Presidential Election Characteristics
· Alaska is the third least populous state in America, along it belongs to a faction of states that haven’t backed a Democrat presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
· Anchorage Borough accounted for 76.4% of all ballots counted in the 2020 race. Nearby Matanuska-Susitna Borough is the Republican stronghold of Alaska, but the state’s voters are largely independent and less tethered to the partisan divides of the contiguous states, making for less predictable election outcomes. Democrats pile up their votes in urban centers like Anchorage and Juneau, and throughout small villages with Native Alaskan populations.
· Alaska’s GOP leadership has done everything it possibly can to turn The Last Frontier into a blue state, including expanding mail-in balloting, enshrining Automatic Voter Registration, and allowing Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) to take root. The latter permitted a 3:2 Republican turnout in 2022 to elect a Democrat to the U.S. House for the first time in 49 years.
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2020 Review
Official: Donald Trump +10.1% (+36,173 votes in margin)
Keshel Revised Likely: Donald Trump +19.8% (+65,348 votes in margin)
I hold a more conspiratorial view of Alaska’s 2020 race than most, even those who realize Ranked Choice Voting is being used to elect and reelect corrupt bureaucrats like Lisa Murkowski. Trump wound up carrying Alaska by more than 10% in certified results, but it took several days to call the race. As soon as it was clear that Pennsylvania and Georgia would go to Biden, Alaska was called for Trump, remaining with the GOP once again, like it has been in every election since 1968. I believe Alaska was the contingency plan to nudge Biden over 270 electoral votes in the event of a 269-269 tie and was cut loose once not needed.
For starters, Anchorage Borough backed the Democrat nominee for the first time since 1964, despite Trump having won it in 2016 and increased his total vote by more than 10% in his reelection campaign. Despite his large margin in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, I suspect over 3,000 stuffed ballots there, which reduced Trump’s margin despite an excellent gain. Despite his regression in Alaska, he managed to flip the North Slope Borough for the first time in over a decade, which has a large Native Alaskan population, and in every precinct but one, Biden lost votes from Clinton. That tells me that ballot harvesting wasn’t an option there due to the remoteness of the Arctic region, and therefore ballot harvesting is likely what threw the margins everywhere else. Alaska now has Automatic Voter Registration that automatically enrolls everyone claiming Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (oil money), which has flooded the rolls with additional entries by which to assign and harvest ballots. Alaska is one of just two states (out of 18) with Automatic Voter Registration that Trump managed to win in 2020, joining West Virginia.
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2024 Preview
Prediction: Donald Trump >+12% official, >+20% clean
Due to my suspicions laid out in the preceding section, and thanks to the implementation of Automatic Voter Registration and Ranked Choice Voting, I had planned to leave Alaska for the next portion of my electoral preview, called “leaners,” with a forecast just inside 10%. I have since changed my mind based on the lack of narrative about Alaska going anywhere but to Trump, plus polling and forecasting showing leads more in line with Trump’s 2016 margin of 14.7%.
This most likely has to do with Trump’s improvement with urban and suburban voters, which helps him in Anchorage (76.4% of the vote), but also with his non-white improvement, which impacts the Native Alaskan vote as I described in the preceding segment regarding the North Slope Borough. Alaska has a very slight rightward tick in voter registration, but thanks to Automatic Voter Registration, is loading up with “independents” – otherwise known as people who are being signed up to vote, but don’t intend to, and don’t choose a party.
Lack of an “Alaska could flip” narrative, limited polling, and other forecasting models make me inclined to believe Trump will carry the state in the low-to-mid double digits, and win on the first choice round of Ranked Choice Voting with a clear majority; however, unless Alaskans also vote to repeal RCV, which is on the ballot, this year, I predict a bleak electoral future, with Alaska in jeopardy by 2032 thanks to urban dominance of the vote. We’ve already seen that in the case of the U.S. House.
If you’d like to sponsor a precinct mapping of any of the state’s boroughs, e-mail mapping@goefi.org.
Previous Installments
Author’s Note: Information is power. This report is free for all to view, and I believe the other Electoral College previews will be, as well. If you find this journal useful and informative, please subscribe as a paying member. My travels and mission this year will not be inexpensive, and your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you!