I’ve long thought that Alaska might be winnable for a Democrat in this election cycle, but I knew it was unlikely to be an outlier in that category. If Alaska became competitive, then it would mean that other, more purplish, states had already fallen. The latest poll by Lake Research Group (an established Democratic survey outfit that gets a B-Plus rating from Nate Silver) has Alaska as a dead heat. Trump has the support of 37% of Alaskans and Clinton has support of thirty-six percent. Since the last poll in August, Trump has lost one point and Clinton has gained six. Remarkably, the undecided vote has only dropped by two percent, going from 19% to seventeen percent. In other words, Clinton’s gains have come from a decline in support for Gary “What’s Aleppo?” Johnson who is now polling at a meager 7% in a state where libertarianism is naturally attractive.
Let’s face it, Alaskans are a self-sufficient group, at least on a personal level. It’s true that they all get socialistic checks each year from the Alaskan pipeline. It’s also true that they rely on federal money perhaps more than any other state (see: Bridge to Nowhere). But the citizens chop their own firewood, hunt for a lot of their own food, and they made the decision to live in the wilderness in the first place. It’s a bit of contradiction, sure, but that doesn’t mean Alaskans are clear-sighted about their dependency on government. They can fix a snowmobile. Can you?
Yet, Johnson is doing surprisingly poorly in the Northwoods and people are increasingly seeing him as less rather than more of an alternative to Trump. Perhaps Alaskans aren’t completely myopic about their true situation. They may tend to elect Republicans to represent them in Washington, but those Republicans (most famously, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young) made their reputations by bringing home the bacon. Alaskans have been more libertarian in theory than in practice.
There’s also something about frontier women that makes them particularly disinclined to endorse Donald Trump’s objectifying condescension.
In any case, Alaska is competitive and there are enough undecideds still at this last stage in the race that no one can project with certainty who will win it.
My perspective about Alaska derives from having spent parts of three summers there doing scientific field studies.
Alaskans love their annual checks from the state government (proceeds of the oil pipeline leases, I believe). Can’t argue with that.
I question your characterization, however, about most Alaskans chopping their own wood, repairing their own snowmobiles and hunting their own meat. The only significant population concentration is in Anchorage, a truly unattractive city, and folks there buy their meat in plastic wrap at the supermarket. As for snowmobile repair, I would guess that there are people with the skill to repair them and others without. As for the percentage of Alaskans who even own them, I have no idea.
Anchorage was a very small settlement until the Second World War, when suddenly the US recognized the need for a military presence to prevent Japanese encroachment. (The Japanese did occupy some islands in the outer Aleutians.) So Anchorage’s population swelled thanks to federal largesse.
Yet Alaskans weirdly don’t recognize their own history and have a collective myth about self reliance and all that.
It’s true that many Alaskans live much like the rest of the country. Enough don’t, however, to represent the swing.
My brother lived in rural Montana for years. He said people used to move out there from the East and after a while divided predominantly into two groups. Those who couldn’t take the stark desolation and wilderness and returned East. And those who were oppressed by the “crowding and urbanization” and moved on to Alaska.
Alaska has a population of roughly 780,000 people, almost half of which live in the Anchorage metropolitan area. Well over half of alaskas population live in its top four cities.
Alaska
Maybe a good population analogy is Australia, it has the image of the ‘outback’ and crocodile Dundee, but most Australians live in large cities and suburbs.
It might be that Alaskans attraction to Republicans has more to do with resource extraction rather than libertarian beliefs. It being the most socialist of our states kind of points to that.
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Yep, I was going to make exactly that point in response to this line:
But the citizens chop their own firewood, hunt for a lot of their own food, and they made the decision to live in the wilderness in the first place.
According to latest estimates slightly more than half of the state population is in Anchorage metro proper. It’s a city with all the normal chain stores, etc. Another 10% live in the Juneau and Fairbanks areas – small, isolated cities but they too have all of the chain store resources available.
The other 40%, for the record, vote in lower numbers due to isolation.
Those checks have been getting smaller, the bacon slices have been getting thinner, and the whole GOP denial of global warming. The permafrost is melting which means Alaskan homes, roads, and the Burger Kings are sinking. The Alaskans are awakening to the reality that they will not survive without taxes.
Um, a more accurate statement would be
Libertarians are always more libertarian in theory than in practice.
Libertarians only stand for less gubmint when it harms white people and College Republicans and yes, one is a subset of the other. Libertarians like to pretend that “libertarian” and “selfish Republican asshole” are somehow different.