Among the gems in the 30-day state financial reports filed by candidates is a curious line item: Gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker is no longer using the Portland, Oregon polling firm he used last cycle, nor one that has history of polling in Alaska. Instead, he has turned to a New York and Florida-based Schoen Research LLC, run by a former advisor to President Bill Clinton.
The amount spent on polling by Walker is likely some of the highest spending on polling in this election cycle in the governor’s race, and appears to be the reason why he is shapeshifting into a pro-abortion candidate.
Doug Schoen, principal of the firm, calls himself a Democrat dedicated to increasing bipartisanship and sats he was an advisor to Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was an ally of former Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz. Bloomberg, through his philanthropic interests, gave $1 million to Anchorage to set up a climate change and equity project called “Solutions for Energy and Equity Through Design Lab, or SEED Lab.” Berkowitz then endorsed Bloomberg for president.
But Schoen doesn’t appear to have much history of his own in Alaska politics. Schoen does a lot of history in polling to push the abortion agenda. One of his main areas of focus is to try to persuade voters to favor abortion by telling them that most abortions in America are actually done through the morning after pill, and that when that is explained to voters, they soften their stance against abortion. Much of the Schoen Twitter feed has ideas on how to use the abortion question to elect more Democrats this cycle. Tweets, such as the one that follows, are standard issue for Schoen:
Walker has paid the Schoen Research firm $93,500 for polling this election cycle, with a possible objective of increasing Walker’s chances with Democrats who support abortion and swing voters who are all over the map on the issue.
Walker, a former Republican who now runs as a loner candidate without a political party, served for four years as governor before being harshly judged by voters in 2018. This is his fourth run for governor. He ran as a pro-life candidate in 2010 and 2014, and was mushy on the issue in 2018, but has since developed a strong alliance with Democrats and the polling is telling him what he needs to do this time around — be pro-abortion.
Although he withdrew from the ballot on Oct. 19 of 2018 and endorsed Democrat Mark Begich for governor, Walker still got 2% of the vote two weeks later. So he knows there are about 5,757 voters who are still with him.
This year, Walker is going back to the Democrat well, telling voters that after ranking him first, they should rank Democrat Les Walker second. Walker and Gara are campaign allies, but Gara has the endorsement of Planned Parenthood, a coveted endorsement for pro-abortion candidates.
And that’s where a company like Schoen can come in and do push-polling to help craft the narrative for Walker.
Among clients that Schoen has helped with his company and his associated company Schoen Cooperman Research in New York are well-known Democrat candidates such as Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and entities, such as the “vote yes” on Maine’s ranked choice voting ballot initiative in 2016, and anti-Second Amendment legislation.
Walker used Patinkin Research out of Portland, Ore. for polling during his last run for office four years ago. That company produced a result for him that showed that he was winning. It appears Patinkin wasn’t really cut out for polling Alaska’s elections accurately, but the company had no way of knowing that their candidate would simply quit, so there’s no real way to know if Patinkin was close to the mark.
