Even with a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, an all-GOP federal delegation, and nominal GOP majorities in both legislative chambers, Alaska has been labeled a “purple” state by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC).
In a national legislative map published by the RSLC, Alaska appears alongside just three other battleground states: Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — states with divided or weakly held Republican legislatures. The designation stands in sharp contrast to Alaska’s apparent political profile on the surface, where Republican officeholders dominate the executive and congressional branches.
The RSLC’s analysis doesn’t hinge solely on who holds seats, but rather on how those seats function. In Alaska, a coalition of Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans currently holds effective control of the State House, and the Republican-led Senate often parts ways with the governor on fiscal matters. In the House, there are 22 Republicans out of 40 members; in the Senate, it’s 11 out of 20, and yet the Democrats are running the show because some members, such as Sen. Gary Stevens of Kodiak and Sen. Jesse Bjorkman of Nikiski, do not ally with Republicans, but with Democrats.
Even as Gov. Mike Dunleavy called lawmakers to Juneau for a special session starting Aug. 2, tensions remain high over anticipated legislative efforts to override his recent partial education funding vetoes, a move that signals the limits of GOP influence in the Alaska Legislature.
The RSLC, which played a major role in defending and expanding Republican state legislative power in 2024, did not include Alaska on its priority list for investment or strategic targeting. Instead, it focused on battlegrounds where clear gains were achievable. That strategy proved fruitful: the organization reports it helped Republicans gain seats in deep-blue states like California, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont, while flipping the Michigan House and breaking the Democrat trifecta in Minnesota.
By the end of the 2024 cycle, Republicans controlled 57 of the 99 state legislative chambers nationwide and gained three new supermajorities. Twenty-three states have a Republican trifecta — both houses of the legislature and the governor are Republican. Alaska is a trifecta state, but is the color purple, even though its GOP governor won outright without having to go into the ranked-choice voting roulette wheel.
Alaska’s unique ranked-choice voting system and open primaries may play a role in this classification. The electoral structure has frequently empowered leftist candidates, or Republicans who caucus or conspire with Democrats in the Legislature, weakening party cohesion and making GOP victories at the ballot box less meaningful once the Legislature gavels in.
Whether the RSLC has written off Alaska due to its internal political structure or simply sees its Legislature as too fractured to be strategically viable, the omission from the national Republican strategy map speaks volumes.
As lawmakers return to Juneau this week for the special session, their actions may once again reinforce the perception that, beneath the Republican-in-name banner, Alaska’s governing reality is no longer red.
C’mon Suzanne. Be honest: “…an all-GOP federal delegation….” I think Princess spells the lie to that statement. Otherwise, I think you’ve captured the nuts of what I’ve observed during the last few years. The population is conservative, but isn’t given a voice because the representatives, ‘don’t’ (represent us).
Truth!
Murky is a defacto democrat.
Sullivan is a RINO
NBIII is the only conservative we have in DC.
Actually, Sully’s been pretty good. Cheers –
Sullivan voted for all of Biden’s appointees, voted for Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, and has voted yres for the $350 billion in aid for Ukraine – in fact just voted for $50 billion more.
Sullivan is THE definition of a RINO NeoCon.
Amen. Weird how people come up with familiar names like “Sully” when they try to gaslight us….like he’s their friend.
Wow.
Facts
Murkowski, Merrick and Stutes have undone the R majority in their respective bodies. They are effectively blue. Then you have a Lt Gov who has done nothing to address election integrity, color her blue and a Governor who doesn’t override the worthless Lt Gov. Our election process is blue.
It’s because of illegals, minorities, migrants, immigrants and foreigners.
Third: Show us the data in support of this proposition.
It is because of hacks like Murkowski, Stutes, Merrick and Dahlstrom and a weak governor.
In Anchorage it is because of the teacher’s unions and net takers and ignorance.
And the voters are innocent?
Purple is very generous.
Considering the best democrats in AK have an R behind their names,
well, duh.
2 party politics is a poison to a mass consciousness. We are one country, one people.
The only people who benefit from the divide are not the batteries of society, but the parasitic draw of the system called politicians.
I am not red, blue, or purple. I, like my brothers and sisters are various shades of wheat.
We need to run all the Looney leftist out of state. We don’t want those Looney Tunes, fascist, commie, Nazi, socialist destroying our state.
Been saying that for years! It’s time to show them who’s really in charge! 👍
Alaska is the color purple because the our political party’s are nothing but two sides of the same coin. We also have a judiciary that unconstitutionally and regularly refuses to recognize the will of the people.
S76: Have you got an example that you can share that supports your theory?
The Republican Party Candidates in Alaska are TOO INFILTRATED WITH LIARS. GIESSEL, MERRICK, STUTES, STEVENS from Kodiak, Kopp, Underwood (Deadwood), Moore, YUNDT, on, and on, and on. If all the LIARS where replaced with honest Republicans we would see better education for kids, full PFD Checks to infuse cash flow to families and small businesses. RCV would be NULLIFIED by so many people voting Republican. Instead all the above politician’s have Pledged Loyalty to the Union Uni Party. Liars should not be returned to office. NEVER.
Dear Republican State Leadership Committee,
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Don’t abandon your fellow Americans. Help us figure out how to get our traditional, reasonably open, honest, and transparent election system back!
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The election system forced on us now is so easily corruptible, we have no way of independently verifying who voted for whom or what.
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Alaska’s outsourced voter roll oversight is apparently so corrupt that it got the attention of the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
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And that’s only the beginning. Voters have no credible oversight of, or control over, easily corruptible state or municipal election processes. Period.
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You have a state full of election whistleblowers who’ll be only too glad to return Alaska to a brilliant shade of red, but how do we get your attention, your help?
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Everything we’ve heard about voter fraud uncovered in so many other places …can’t happen in Alaska, or you don’t care because we’re just too far away and it’s only 3 electoral votes anyway?
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You’ll risk mid-term election outcomes on the idea that what’s happening here just can’t happen in any other state that matters …and call that “leadership”?
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Someone pay you to go all Purple Rain on us, hide us away, the GOP’s bastard stepchildren?
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No? Then what we need from you is a full-blown investigation, a forensic audit of Alaska’s election system management and practices, from voter rolls to mail-in ballots, to RCV mismanagement, to election outcome reports.
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Let’s get this done and get back to red, like yesterday, unless of course, in the opinion of the Republican State Leadership Committee, we’re not worth saving?
In Alaska, a coalition of radical leftist extremists, spineless fence sitters, and Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINOs) currently holds effective control of the State House.
Fixed it for you
PS: I am having great problems trying to post on MRAK once again in the last few days, constantly getting that damnable “403 Forbidden” message almost every time I try to post; when I do manage to get a comment through, it is only after trying 6, 8 or 10 times. It is becoming exhausting to try posting comments under these conditions, and if they continue I will eventually stop even trying.
The reason isn’t that the democrats were elected the majority, it the fact that the new Republicans lack ethics, honor and loyalty.
I’d say they called it wrong. We are a leftist state run by the uni-party who is “elected” by our broken system.
Sounds like a movie, The Color Purple.
We have traitorous Lisa Murkowski. We have a left-wing majority legislature. We have a very liberal state supreme court. We have multiple newspapers with left-wing agenda, spewing untruths and wacko propoganda. And, we have a state full of government workers who vote Democrat.
Nailed it.
Red is the predominant color in the classic purple mix; red comprising 60% and blue comprising 40%.
It’s a Murky color.
Good analysis, Ellen.
SAD that all these leftists moved here and destroyed us. But voters deserve blame also. Let alone of the hundreds of refugees that have been shipped here to mess with our census data. We have Hope with Trump opening us back up. No more rank choice crap and you have to be a citizen to vote.
This started w/ Jimmy Cater & the D-2 Lands Bill.
When the Feds made AK 33% Federal Park, Greenies started to flood up here & they still come up to this day, along w/ TOO many tourists (why is a mine bad for the environment but millions of tourists are not?)
Sad.
Given that the Alaskan Republican Party cannot be bothered to publicly and loudly condemn their turncoats, why should the national party bother with us?
Never thought of Alaska as a “red” state. It’s always been a very centralized, oversized state, federal and local government run state in more of a corrupt dysfunctional manner, with a few idiosyncrasies as relatively less onerous infringements on firearm rights than a traditional Democrat state.
On federal level we have the same old Neo Con politicians who serve the defense contractors and are on board with endless wars and federal agency control of most of our State.
Alaska is “red” only in that we always come out for the Republican presidential candidate. Our cities and legislature are clearly under the control of left-wing miscreants.
What do you expect? Half the state is comprised of government workers. 90% of the state worker’s salaries are derived from oil production. 85% to 90% of government workers believe in the false narrative that the earth is warming due to oil as a source of combustible fuel. And 50% of the population is stuck on wokeism, LGBTQ, and other radical left-wing horse pucky. This is the new Alaska. Not the Last Frontier where Alaskans got along with each other and were productive and hardy citizens.
Donkey pucky is more like it. The Democrats never fail to stink-up everything they touch.
After 62 years here I see alaska turning in to Washington, Oregon, California. We have Anch, Cordova, Juneau all heavy dem, sprinkle in the Nome young whites, native and the rest of something for nothing and wha-lha Blue state. Alaskans always want free government $$$ with no over site.
Yes, after 64 years here – the last 20 have been a seeping sewage of The Swamp. The RLSC is not wrong. The radical Left Marxists are determined to make the coast blue from San Diego to Utquiagvik.
Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks are blue.
Alaska has 740k people.
Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks have 356k.
So basically half of the entire state lives in crazyville and the trajectory of Alaska is the same as Washington, Oregon, Colorado, etc…
Why should we not be purple? I am kind of surprised we are not shown as solidly blue.
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The largest city in the State is run by leftists who keep getting re-elected, so Anchorage is democrat. The second and third largest cities are also pretty much blue based on their assemblies. Even in the State legislature, the Republicans caucus with the Democrats… well maybe caucus is too strong, they build a coalition that supports the Democrat agenda.
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Seriously, Alaska is blue, not purple. Not because of voter rolls and party affiliation, but because of who we consistently select to represent us at all levels of government.
We should make “Barney” our state mascot.
If Trump doesn’t purge his Cabinet soon and dump Netanyahoo we will likely see a lot more Blue states in the future! It’s not too late to stop this train wreck, but it’s getting close!
Purple is the color of royalty. We told Lisa to hold her crown high and be proud of her royal last name. 45 years and running strong. Thank you, Princess. Your resort castle in Palm Desert awaits you.
Move the Capitol to Wasilla and problem solved.
Put the entire Legislature on the Tustemena next January and send them out to sea for 90 days. And if Covid strikes, just send the Tusty further out. It would be the best Session ever.
GOP of Alaska only had to explain to the voters how to vote in RCV fiasco in Pertola effort . In fact they failed miserably . Now national GOP says we’re a purple state , I don’t buy it . This is the same group that called Arizona a purple state and looked what happened , cheating , voter fraud and corrupt voting system . I think the GOP is the issue and poor leadership . Lots of evidence the last several years . RCV in Alaska was to get their folks elected . They support both sides and the Pertola win was the evidence . One great thing in the last six months , the Rinos are now in full view in DC . Can’t hide any longer . As Trump showed , it’s the candidate not the party . GOP is a mess whether it’s Mitch McConnell or Lindsay G or the or our two Rinos from Ak ! And yes Dan your record is you swing for both sides . Like a loose screen door in a wind storm !