A new Public Policy Polling survey on the Alaska Senate race for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee gives Democrats some fantastic news: Democratic candidate and former Rep. Mary Peltola leads incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan 49 to 47.
This is the second poll in the last couple of weeks showing a tight race in this otherwise comfortably red state. Another one by the left-leaning firm Data for Progress, conducted before Peltola even announced her candidacy, found her leading Sullivan 46 to 45 on the first ballot.
Former Rep. Mary Peltola, Democratic Senate candidate in Alaska.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, meaning that if no candidate clears 50% in the first round, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated and their voters’ second choices are redistributed. It’s the system that helped propel Peltola to victory in her 2022 House race, when she beat former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Peltola narrowly lost reelection in 2024 to Nick Begich, a Republican with one of the most famous last names in Alaska politics. His grandfather, Nick Begich Sr., was a Democratic representative in the 1960s.
That legacy carried forward: his uncle, Tom Begich, is a former Democratic state Senate minority leader now running for governor, and Tom’s brother, Mark Begich, was Alaska’s last Democratic U.S. senator.
Losing to a Republican Begich stung at the time, but it may end up being a blessing if Peltola lands in the Senate instead.
The Data for Progress poll didn’t test ranked-choice runoffs for the Senate race, since it was primarily focused on a hypothetical Peltola gubernatorial run. In that scenario, Peltola won easily.
Partisan states are generally more willing to elect someone from the minority party to the statehouse than to Washington, and there’s no Republican incumbent in the governor’s race, so that result shouldn’t be overstated. Still, posting victory numbers in the mid-60s shows that Peltola remains broadly popular despite her party affiliation.
Incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska
What makes the PPP poll especially exciting is that at 49%, Peltola is already within striking distance of the 50% threshold she needs to win outright.
“The 49-47 is what matters there more than the 2-point margin,” the pollster wrote. “PPP has done a lot of polls over the years in red states that found a strong Democratic candidate up 41-39 or something like that, but when you dug into the numbers it would turn out two-thirds of that large bloc of undecideds were Republican-leaning and likely to break late for the GOP.”
The pollster continued, “That’s not the case here. With both candidates having near-total name recognition, Peltola is already close to the 50% threshold she needs to win. There basically are no undecideds.”
In a normal political environment, Peltola’s chances would be slim. But in this one? She’s a coin flip away, with a full year left to campaign—and a full year for Trump to keep dragging his party down.
