In an interview in Fairbanks, Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola broke her silence about Joe Biden: She predicted that Donald Trump will win Alaska in a landslide in November.
Peltola also said that her opinion about Biden’s mental capacity and the growing concern about his dementia is “irrelevant.”
“I don’t think there is any benefits to Alaskans weighing in on this issue,” Peltola said. “My opinion is irrelevant.”
Peltola was working to suppress Democrat expectations, but she also contradicted the proclamations of her own party. In a May visit to Alaska by Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison, he said that ranked choice voting could give Biden a victory in Alaska.
Peltola has a markedly different view from DNC Chairman Harrison:
“Alaska is not in play in the presidential race and that last I heard, Biden was 33 points behind Trump in Alaska,” Peltola told the Fairbanks News Miner. “The last presidential election cycle, it was 10 points above for Trump.”
The reporter did not press Peltola on what a landslide for Trump might mean to her own race, but her prediction may have been off script. This may be the last newspaper interview her campaign agrees to.
While there is no poll that has been made public showing Trump to be in landslide territory in Alaska, it may be Peltola’s own internal polling that she accidentally spilled during her interview, or it could be just something she thought of on the fly.
In December, Peltola was cheering Biden on, calling him “one of the smartest, sharpest people I’ve met in D.C.” Even then, that was an extraordinary claim, but is now widely viewed as a political white lie.
Alaska is still somewhat a red state; Peltola is somewhat of an anomaly in its history. For 49 years, a Republican served Alaska in its only congressional seat until Congressman Don Young died in 2022.
Going back to 2016, and Trump’s first run for elected office, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 14.7 points in Alaska.
Four years later, Trump carried Alaska by 52.8% compared to Biden’s 42.8%.
Liberal pollster Data for Progress predicts Trump will win Alaska 53% to Biden’s 41%, a 12-point advantage for Trump. That was for polling up through early March of 2024, before the recent disastrous performance of Biden in the presidential debate on CNN, which took place June 27.
Peltola, calling a 33 point loss for Biden, infers that Alaska not only handed Trump the closest presidential victory state Republicans have seen in decades in 2020, but this year will give him the largest landslide a Republican has ever had in Alaska history.
In 2004, a significant landslide in Alaska was won by incumbent President George W. Bush by a 25.5% margin against Democrat John Kerry. It was Bush – 61% to Kerry – 35.5%.
In 2000, George W. Bush won 58.6% to Al Gore’s 27.6% of the Alaska vote, a 31% landslide. In that year, however, Ralph Nader, a candidate for the Green Party, had drained 10% of the liberal vote from Gore’s totals in Alaska. Without Nader as a spoiler for the Democrats, it would have been closer.
In 1980, Alaska was won by Republican California Gov. Ronald Reagan with 54.3% over incumbent Democrat President Jimmy Carter’s 26.4%.
In 1976, Gerald Ford won 57.9% of the Alaska vote, making Alaska Ford’s fifth-strongest state, after Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Jimmy Carter won 35.65% of the Alaska vote that year. Ford would have done better if not for the Libertarian in the race scraping off 5.49% of the conservative vote.
