ALASKA
America’s largest and most sparsely populated state, Alaska, is truly our nation’s last frontier, being over 2,000 miles away from its closest American neighbor, Washington state. This isolation from the rest of the contiguous United States has given Alaska a certain independence. The state has the highest percentage of registered Libertarians in the nation, and in 2016, the party’s Presidential candidate Gary Johnson won an admirable 5.9% of the vote; Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won 52.9% and 37.7%, respectively. Additionally, in that year’s senate race, Incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski fended off Libertarian challenger Joe Miller, receiving 44.4% of the vote to Miller’s impressive 29.2%.
But with the dropout of Robert Kennedy Jr. and his endorsement of Donald Trump, there is no longer a notable third-party presidential candidate this election cycle. Although Kennedy remains on the ballot in 33 states, including Alaska, he is unlikely to garner many votes, leaving it to be a two-way race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
In 2020, Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in Alaska, receiving 52.8% of the vote to Biden’s 42.8%. This 10-point margin, the closest in the state since 1992, is likely tighter than you expected. Alaska is certainly not as conservative as other sparsely populated mountain-west states like Idaho and Wyoming, and this was shown no better than in the 2022 midterm election.
Being home to only 733,000 residents, Alaska has one at-large house district, and from 1972 to his death in 2022, this district was represented by Republican Don Young. After the 25-term congressman’s death, a special election was held that August to fill his seat. The polarizing former Republican Governor and 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin ran against Democrat Mary Peltola and fellow Republican Nick Begich. Alaska’s recently passed ranked-choice voting method resulted in Palin, Peltola, and Begich receiving 30.9%, 39.7%, and 27.8% of the first-round vote, respectively, and Peltola narrowly defeating Palin in the second round, 51.5% to 48.5%.
Undeterred, Palin challenged Peltola again that November as the Democrat tried to seek her first full term. Stunningly, Palin finished significantly worse than she did that summer, receiving just 45% of the vote to Peltola’s 55%. Although this embarrassing Republican loss likely won’t affect Trump’s performance in Alaska this November, it does signal that a historically red state is shifting closer toward the center.
An important issue to Alaskan voters is energy, and Trump likely has an edge over Harris in this department. The oil and gas industries are the largest component of the state’s economy, and each year these revenues finance the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays out $1,600 to every resident. However, this once-booming energy industry has been in decline in recent years. Alaska has fallen from the second to the sixth highest state in oil production and from the third highest in household income in 2010 to the twelfth highest today.
Trump’s recent campaign pledge to restart oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which was halted by the Biden administration in 2023, is likely to resonate with Alaskans who greatly depend upon this industry. We predict that Donald Trump will win Alaska by a slightly greater margin than in 2020. Although Mary Peltola has shown Democratic performance in the state is certainly on the rise, Trump’s strength on energy policy is likely to compensate for this and more.
OREGON
Oregon is seen today as an extremely progressive state, thanks mostly to the politics of its biggest city, Portland. But not long ago, the Beaver State was a consistent swing state; back in 2000, Democrat Al Gore carried the state by just 0.5 points, and even in 2016, Hillary Clinton barely received a majority of Oregonian votes. Although in recent years the state has been shifting to the left politically, Oregon still has a vocal conservative population.
Will Donald Trump be able to rally Oregon Republicans this fall and gain significant ground in the state?
In 2022, the GOP had their strongest performance in Oregon House elections since 2010, with Republican candidates receiving 44.7% of the vote to the Democrats' 53.1%. A key indicator of growing conservative support in the state is Oregon’s 2nd congressional district, which covers the eastern two-thirds of the state. In that district, Republican Cliff Bentz won reelection with an impressive 67.5% of the vote, up from 59.9% two years prior. Donald Trump won this district in 2020 with just 55% of the vote, signaling that it has shifted further to the right since his last presidential run.
Oregon’s 2nd district is also noteworthy as it encompasses the counties currently supporting the Greater Idaho Movement, a conservative effort seeking to have eastern Oregon secede from the state and join Idaho. Since its inception in 2020, the movement has gained considerable traction among residents who feel that the liberal politics of western Oregon overshadow the conservative majority in rural areas. Currently, 13 Oregon counties have approved ballot measures in favor of Greater Idaho, and legislation is pending in both state legislatures. While it remains unlikely that this movement will succeed, it demonstrates that conservatives in Oregon, despite being a minority statewide, are making their voices heard.
Given the strong Republican performance during the 2022 midterms and the rise of the Greater Idaho Movement, we predict that Donald Trump will perform better in Oregon than he did in 2020. While he received 40.4% of the vote to Joe Biden’s 56.5%, we believe he could receive upwards of 43% of the vote this November against Kamala Harris.
WASHINGTON
Washington State may be Democrats’ most optimism-inducing state in the nation. While today, Washington is not as Democratic-leaning as California or New York, it holds the key distinction of trending blue where the other states have remained stagnant or even began shifting right.
Known for its strong liberal leanings, Washington has been a Democratic stronghold in presidential elections for decades. Since 1988, the state has consistently voted for the Democratic candidate, with Joe Biden securing over 58% of the vote in 2020. Biden’s performance represents a significant leftward shift from his preceding 21st-century nominees: Al Gore and John Kerry won the Evergreen State by less than 10 points, while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton carried the state by low-to-mid double digits.
Washington State’s geographic and political landscape is divided in two halves, along west and east. The west side contains the majority of its population, who mostly reside in densely populated suburbs and urban centers surrounding Seattle. The eastern side of Washington, primarily composed of white, older voters who reside in sparsely-populated rural areas, more closely resembles conservative states such as Idaho and Wyoming.
While Seattle and the surrounding Puget Sound region dominate the state’s population and deliver substantial margins for Democrats, eastern Washington tends to lean Republican, with a focus on issues like agriculture, gun rights, and limited government.
Despite being nearly 80% white, Washington’s electorate is one of the more diverse in the Pacific Northwest. Its growing Hispanic population, combined with significant Asian American and Black communities around the Seattle Metro, have helped solidify Democratic dominance in the state. And although the state’s white voters – many of whom work in industries like farming, forestry, and manufacturing – remain strong supporters of the Republican Party, they still tend to vote less universally Republican than their counterparts in the South or the Mountain West.
National debate over social issues like reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights are unlikely to cause a rightward shift in Washington’s highly-educated, mostly secular electorate. The state’s Democratic coalition, like most others’, is split between a more-moderate suburban faction and a more left-leaning, younger faction residing in urban areas. But these intra-party divisions are much less pronounced, and have caused far less negative consequences for the party as a whole, in Washington than in states like New York, California, and even neighboring Oregon.
At the presidential level, we expect Washington to remain firmly in the Democratic column. While Republicans have nominated a strong candidate for the concurrent gubernatorial race in former WA-08 Rep. Bob Reichert, it is unlikely to compensate for the presence of Trump at the top of the ballot, whose divisive rhetoric and social conservatism have been firmly rejected by Washington’s voters. We predict that Kamala Harris will win Washington by a similar margin to Biden’s: around 20%.
 |
|