If there’s a race that keeps us awake at night, it’s Alaska. The state is home to one of the most important Senate races in the country, but it also has a history of quirky and often inaccurate polling.
Until late last week, the main challenge had been a lack of polling. In the past 20 days, just four nonpartisan polls have been released in Alaska — mostly by firms with middling to poor pollster ratings. Most of the competitive states we’re tracking have had at least twice as many surveys.
So, the polls in Alaska were scarce, but the ones we’d seen told a fairly consistent story. Whether conducted online, by automated script or by live-telephone interview, all of the nonpartisan polls since Labor Day had Republican Dan Sullivan ahead by 3 to 6 percentage points against the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Mark Begich.
All that changed with two new surveys. On Friday, Hellenthal & Associates released a poll that had Begich with a 10 percentage-point advantage — drastically improved from a 5-point deficit in mid-September.
The Hellenthal poll had looked like a huge outlier — until late Monday, when another local firm, Ivan Moore Research, released a poll showing Begich up by either 7 or 8 percentage points (depending on which of the poll’s two turnout models used).
There are many reasons to be skeptical. Public sentiment almost never shifts so much so quickly in a general election, especially this late in the race, without major precipitating news events. A candidate might gain a couple of points over a month on the basis of a superior campaign — but usually not more than that. The Ivan Moore and Hellenthal polls also applied small sample sizes, and showed results in Alaska’s gubernatorial election and at-large U.S. House election that differed from the polling consensus.
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