Alaska Progress Report

Alaska 4th most Republican state

A newly released Gallup poll shows that Alaska is the nation's fourth most Republican state, with the R's enjoying a 19 point advantage in adults who say they "lean Republican." 30 percent of the 585 respondents said they leaned Democratic and 49 percent Republican. The small sample size means about a 4 percent margin of error.

Utah is still the reddest state, with Republicans there sitting on top of a 32 point advantage. Idaho and Wyoming follow at 29 and 27 points respectively, but nationally Democrats still enjoy a slight advantage of 44 to 40. The District of Columbia headlines blue states with a stratospheric 68 point advantage, followed by Hawaii, Maryland and Connecticut, all in the 20's.

Republican versus Democrat is by no means the whole story, however, because in Alaska over half of all voters are nonpartisan/undeclared, more than double the percent that are Republican. In the 2010 general election in Alaska there were 495,290 registered voters. 52.7 percent of us were registered as nonpartisan or undeclared, 26.2 percent Republican, 15.1 percent Democrat and 6 percent other.

Election review recommends changes

This just in from our lite governor: "Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell announced today that an internal review of Alaska’s historic 2010 election is complete. The report recommends 34 changes in election procedures to strengthen ballot security, improve public notice of election procedures, and improve poll worker training.

"The review, conducted by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the Division of Elections, and the Department of Law, includes an analysis of state election laws and procedures and incorporates comments and questions received from stakeholders and the public. The review also recommends:

• Changing Alaska statutes to clarify procedures for counting write-in ballots, and ensuring law on voter intent is consistent with Supreme Court rulings;
• Changing Alaska statutes to make the declaration of write-in candidacy voluntary, but moving the deadline for that declaration to 21 days before a general election; and
• Continuing an independent, third-party study on ballot security by the University of Alaska originated by former Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell.

“None of the changes in statute or procedure suggested by our review would have changed the results of the 2010 election,” Lt. Governor Treadwell said. “They will, however, respond to the concerns of Alaska voters and streamline procedures in the future. Alaskans can be confident that their voices and votes were heard and accounted for.”

Alaska One of Only Four 'Strong Republican' States

Are you sitting down? Truly, this is (OK, not very) shocking: according to Gallup, Alaska is the fourth most Republican state in the union: "In 2008, Gallup interviewed more than 350,000 U.S. adults as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking. That includes interviews with 1,000 or more residents of every U.S. state except Wyoming (885) and North Dakota (953), as well as the District of Columbia (689)... Each sample of state residents was weighted by demographic characteristics to ensure it is representative of the state's population.

"In order to rank the states on partisanship, Gallup analyzes 'leaned' party identification by state. This measure adds partisan-leaning independents to the percentage who identify with either of the parties. Thus, the Republican total includes Republican identifiers and independents who lean Republican, and the Democratic total likewise includes Democratic identifiers and independents who lean Democratic. This helps makes the state data more comparable because the percentage who identify as political independents varies greatly by state, from a low of 25% in the District of Columbia to a high of 53% in Rhode Island."

Sorting the states by Democratic advantage, the most Democratic states are the District of Columbia (+75%), Rhode Island (+37%), Massachusetts (+34%) and Hawaii (+34%). The least Democratic states are Utah (-23%), Wyoming (-20%), Idaho (-15%) and Alaska (-11%). But as usual we're bucking the trend as one of only four states with a "strong Republican" (at least a 10 point advantage) affiliation, versus 29 states and DC with "strong Democratic" affiliation. We don't care how they do it Outside.