Could Alaska be pivotal in a presidential victory? Not likely, but a poll has politicos talking

It’s unlikely, but political types have pointed to Alaska’s three electoral college votes as possibly being a factor in the presidential election.

That’s after a poll showed that the race in Alaska is closer than many people thought, and that a handful of other states, each with many more electoral college votes, could go either way, between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and the Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Still, Alaska is known as a red state and has gone to Republican presidential candidates in every election since statehood, except for one, and that was 60 years ago. So how could a Democrat win here this time around?

Well, almost nobody thinks that’s possible. But, as Bloomberg News reported recently, a poll led to speculation about a farfetched path to presidential victory that might run through Alaska.

And that led Bloomberg News Seattle Bureau Chief Anna Edgerton to Alaska.

Listen:

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This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Anna Edgerton: So my assignment was basically to go to Alaska and find out if Kamala Harris has a chance to win Alaska’s three electoral college votes. I think the answer is probably no, but I think there are trends in Alaskan politics that are hopeful for Democrats that will be tricky at the national level to turn into real concrete electoral gains.

Casey Grove: Was this enough to actually attract people to, say, fundraise for Kamala Harris in Alaska? Or, like, have strategists actually really been looking at Alaska as a place to focus on?

AE: I think it’s less about fundraising in Alaska, and more about fundraisers outside of Alaska in the Lower 48 telling donors that they see an expanded Electoral College map for Democrats, if not in this election, then maybe in the future. And I think some of the examples that Democrats are looking at are states like Virginia and Colorado. Colorado, used to be a red state, is now solidly blue. Virginia, used to be a swing state, is now solidly blue. Alaskan politics at a statewide level, if you look at presidential, Senate, House and gubernatorial races, you know, all the statewide races, are trending towards Democrats over the last two decades, actually, more quickly than Virginia or Colorado.

But the more people I was talking to about this, the more I just kept thinking about Zeno’s paradox, where you go halfway to your distance each time. You never quite get there. For a national Democrat, for a presidential candidate, who’s speaking to the entire coalition of Democratic voters across the country, it’s hard to run an Alaska-specific campaign that’s going to overcome that kind of long standing allegiance to the Republican Party.

CG: Just real quick, just to like, I guess, sort of entertain the idea, even if it’s farfetched: That Electoral College map is kind of why, hypothetically, Alaska might matter, our three electoral college votes might matter. And that sort of depends on some of those other states, which way they go. And I just wondered if you could describe for me what that path to victory might look like.

AE: Yeah, I mean, the election is going to come down to the wire between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. You know, everyone is looking at the seven swing states we always talk about, you know, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada (and Nebraska, which splits its Electoral College votes). So, you know, we could see an election in which Kamala Harris loses Michigan and Pennsylvania but wins North Carolina and Georgia. You know, it’s just really hard to know, with almost every swing state right on the razor’s edge, which way it’s going to fall. I’ve also done some reporting on North Carolina where, you know, Democrats are feeling very confident. I would say not overconfident but definitely pretty hopeful. And everyone I talk to just says there’s no way at this point to know which way it’s going to go. And when you’re in that kind of environment, you’re looking for the backup wherever you can find it, even if it’s, you know, a few time zones behind the East Coast, and if it’s only three electoral college votes in Alaska.

CG: Yeah. I have to admit, and this is a reaction from one of my colleagues, this is not my criticism, but I told her that I was going to be talking to you, and she said, quote, “That story is out of touch with actual Alaska and based on liberal wishful thinking.” So what do you think about that?

AE: I would say it’s absolutely liberal wishful thinking. But I think there’s also, you know, if you look at the state politics of Alaska, you know the way that the majority coalitions work in the state Legislature, it’s a different kind of politics. And I think what we can take from that is that Alaska is more competitive than some of the other deep red states. You know, if you look at some of the Deep South states, there’s a very low ceiling for Democrats. The range of possible outcomes is very narrow, whereas in Alaska, Republicans have consistently won the Electoral College votes, but underneath that, down ballot, there’s a lot more movement. And so I think that’s what national Democrats are looking at and thinking about, how Alaska could shift in the future.

I think another important question for political strategists, for national Democrats, is thinking about how, what’s the future of Alaska’s economy? What industries are going to be ascendant? Which industries are in decline, and what that means for the composition of Alaska’s population. In a state of 730,000 people, it doesn’t take many to tip the balance, you know, compared to a much larger state. So I think that’s where Democrats are, you know, if not counting on the those votes, kind of looking farther into the future to see if there could be a chance there.