- Trump 45% – Biden 39%
- Sullivan 45% – Gross 37%
- Alaskans Give Trump & Biden Similar, Break-Even Favorability Ratings
Loudonville, NY. In Alaska, President Donald Trump holds a six-point lead, 45-39 percent, over former Vice President Joe Biden, which has voted Republican in the last 13 presidential elections. In the race for the U.S. Senate, incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan leads his Democratic nominee, Al Gross, by eight points, 45-37, according to today’s The New York Times/Siena College polls of likely Alaskan voters.
“Alaskans have not gone ‘blue’ in a presidential race since LBJ back in 1964. They backed Trump in 2016 by 15 points, and he currently holds a six-point lead. Trump gets near unanimous support from Republicans, 96 percent, and Biden gets similar support from Democrats, and he also leads among independents by 12 points,” said Don Levy, Director of the Siena College Research Institute.
“Although Biden gets double-digit backing from independents, who account for nearly half of voters, that is more than offset by the fact that substantially more Alaskan voters identify as Republicans rather than Democrats,” Levy said.
“Trump and Biden are running virtually even among non-white voters, which includes Alaska Natives, but whites are a tale of two educations. Whites with a college degree back Biden 65-26 percent, while those white voters without a degree favor Trump 61-23 percent,” Levy said. “Men are with Trump by 17 points and women back Biden by seven points.”
Biden has a breakeven 48-48 percent favorability rating, and Trump’s favorability rating is 49-47 percent.
“In the Senate race, the dynamics are very similar. Republicans overwhelmingly back Sullivan and Democrats are solidly behind Gross, who also has a seven-point lead with independents,” Levy said. “Women slightly favor Gross but men more strongly back Sullivan.”
This New York Times/Siena College survey of Alaska was conducted October 9-14, 2020 by telephone calls in English to 423 likely voters, with a margin of error of +/-5.7 percentage points. Calls were made to a stratified weighted sample of voters from the L-2 Voter list via both land and cell phones. The data was weighted by party, age, race/ethnicity, education, region, gender and voter likelihood, a computed score that combines voter history, stated voter likelihood and modeled turnout by respondent. Polling support for this project provided by Reconnaissance Market Research. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social, and cultural research. SCRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information, please call Don Levy at 518-944-0482. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SCRI/SNY. For additional methodological information, click here.
