A poll conducted this week by Alaska Survey Research shows that Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in a strong position going into the Nov. 8 general election. Early voting begins on Oct. 24.
Some 49% of Alaskans surveyed last week rate Dunleavy positively; 46.5% rate him negatively. The rest said they were neutral, and only one of the 1,403 survey participants said he/she didn’t know who Dunleavy is.
The positive rating for Democrat Les Gara is 31%, and his negative rating is nearly 25%. But his biggest problem is that 23% of likely Alaska voters don’t know who he is.
Bill Walker, the former governor who left the Republican Party and became a leftist undeclared candidate many years ago, has an approval rating of 38.4% and a disapproval rating of 43%. Just 5.6% of those answering the survey didn’t know who Walker is.
Charlie Pierce, a Republican from Sterling, has a high “who” factor, with 44% not knowing who he is.
According to the survey results, Dunleavy would win the first round of ranked-choice voting with 43.6% of the vote, not enough to win outright. Democrat Les Gara gets 28.3% and Bill Walker has just 21.2%,
For the second round, Charlie Pierce would have been eliminated and the Dunleavy/Dahlstrom ticket would be the beneficiary of most of those voters, ending up with 48.2%, while Gara would tick up to 29.1%, and Walker ticks up to 22.7.
For the third round, the Walker ticket would be eliminated, and most of those votes would go to Gara, but there would not be enough for Gara to overtake Dunleavy: Dunleavy and running mate Nancy Dahlstrom would win with 53.4%, to Gara’s 46.6%.
Walker has instructed his voters to vote for the Democrat ticket second, and at least in this survey, most of them are inclined to do so. Gara voters will likely return the favor and rank Walker second on their ballot. Both Walker and Gara support abortion on demand, and they’re both supported by dark money through the Alaska Center; both have been endorsed.
Who were the people who took the survey? About 1,400 people ages 18 and above who are likely Alaska voters. The mean age was 46 years old, while the average age of Alaskans is about 34.6. In 2020, 47.2% of these survey takers voted for Donald Trump for president, and 38% voted for Joe Biden. The actual number of Alaska voters who chose Trump in 2020 was 53%, with Biden getting 43% of the vote.
The most recent polling aggregate for approval/disapproval of Biden’s performance shows that 42.3% of Alaskans approve of him, and 54.6% disapprove of him, within the margin of error range reflecting the opinions of those who took the Alaska Survey Research Survey.
