Alaska Democratic candidate Mary Peltola has pulled ahead of Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan in a string of recent polls of their critical Senate race, but the lead remains narrow. Alaska has become a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats as they hope to ride a blue wave back into majorities in both the House and Senate. Peltola, a former Congresswoman in the state, has proven to be a strong candidate and the GOP has faced headwinds as President Donald Trump's approval ratings continue to slide along with voters' views on the economy and the Iran war.
Democrats need to defend all of their Senate seats and flip four others to take the majority in the upper chamber. Only one state—Maine—features a race where an incumbent Republican is trying to defend their seat in a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024. Democrats have had to broaden their battlefield to target states where Trump won by double digits in 2024, including Alaska.
While the state last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 2008, it has not backed a Democrat for the White House since 1964 and has long been considered a safe zone for Republicans. Newsweek reached out to Peltola’s campaign and Sullivan’s campaign by email for comment on Tuesday morning. Peltola held a 44 percent to 42 percent lead over Sullivan, who is endorsed by Trump, in a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted between October 12 and October 15.
The survey polled 775 Alaska likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, carrying a 95 percent level of confidence. An InsiderAdvantage poll conducted between October 9 and October 10 gave the former congresswoman an even wider margin of 5 percent over Sullivan, with the Democrat obtaining the support of 48 percent of the 1,200 likely voters surveyed and the Republican 43 percent in a four-way ballot. Two other Republican candidates, Daniel J.
Sullivan Jr. and Gerald L. Heikes, received 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent of the vote, respectively, while 5.3 percent of likely voters were undecided. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 2.83 percentage points.
In a hypothetical second round of voting in that poll, where Sullivan Jr. and Heikes were eliminated, 50.1 percent of voters threw their support behind Peltola, while 48.0 percent backed the incumbent Republican. Other polling conducted this month has also pointed in Peltola’s direction, but the contest appears to remain extraordinarily tight. Public Policy Polling’s survey from October 14 to October 15 put Peltola at 48 percent and Sullivan at 47 percent, while Alaska Survey Research found Peltola leading 47 percent to 45 percent in an October 1 to October 3 four-way survey.
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