Trend vs. Track Record: What the Alaska Polls Really Tell Us
Ivan Moore's numbers favor Peltola — but his history of missing Sullivan's strength demands a closer look
Three polling firms. Seven surveys spanning three years. One striking trend: Dan Sullivan led this race by four points as recently as July 2025 — and now trails by nearly five. Before Democrats celebrate and Republicans panic, a harder question deserves an honest answer: how much should we trust these numbers, and what does the trajectory really mean?
The answer, it turns out, depends entirely on whether you're reading the polls for their absolute values or their directional trend. Those are two very different things.
The Polling Landscape
Alaska Survey Research (ASR), run by veteran pollster Ivan Moore, has conducted five waves of tracking since April 2023 — including a critical July 2025 survey showing Sullivan ahead. Public Policy Polling (PPP), commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, weighed in in January 2026. Data for Progress, a progressive research firm, polled the race in the fall. The full record tells a more complicated story than any single poll suggests.
| Pollster | Date | Peltola | Sullivan | Margin | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Survey Research | Mar 19–22, 2026 | 52.4%* | 47.6%* | Peltola +4.8 | Post-announcement |
| Public Policy Polling | Jan 16–17, 2026 | ~47% | ~45% | Peltola +2 | Pre-announcement |
| Alaska Survey Research | Jan 8–11, 2026 | 48.0% | 46.4% | Peltola +1.6 | Pre-announcement |
| Data for Progress | Oct 17–23, 2025 | ~46% | ~45% | Peltola +1 | Hypothetical |
| Alaska Survey Research | Oct 10–15, 2025 | 48.0% | 46.0% | Peltola +2 | Hypothetical |
| Alaska Survey Research | Jul 29–Aug 1, 2025 | 43.0% | 47.0% | Sullivan +4.0 | Hypothetical |
| Alaska Survey Research | Apr 21–25, 2023 | 44.0% | 41.0% | Peltola +3 | Early hypothetical |
*RCV final-round simulation. Primary numbers for March 2026: Peltola 46.4%, Sullivan 40.9%.
Notably, PPP — a national firm with no particular stake in Alaska's internal political dynamics — found a tight race. Data for Progress found it even tighter. The convergence across firms with different methodologies and funding sources is the most credible signal in the data. Moore's March survey also ran an RCV simulation — modeling how minor candidate votes redistribute — producing a final-round result of Peltola 52.4% to Sullivan 47.6%, a margin Democrats will find encouraging but which should be read with the accuracy caveats discussed below.
The Case for Skepticism: Moore's Track Record
Ivan Moore is Alaska's most prolific political pollster, and for that reason alone his surveys dominate the public record. But prolific doesn't mean infallible — and his history with Dan Sullivan specifically is a significant red flag.
⚠ The 2014 Problem
In late October 2014, Moore predicted Democrat Mark Begich would defeat Dan Sullivan by 7–8 points. One week later, Sullivan won by approximately 4 points — an 11 to 12 point miss. Moore had publicly characterized Sullivan as fundamentally unlikeable. Alaska voters disagreed.
That miss matters for 2026 in two ways. First, it suggests Moore may systematically underestimate Sullivan's ceiling with Alaska voters. Second, Sullivan himself appears to have absorbed that lesson — he has spent years building favorability that his 2014 numbers didn't reflect.
Media Bias/Fact Check rates Alaska Survey Research as left-center in its lean, with a predictive accuracy rating of roughly 67 percent. That's workable — but it means one in three elections deviates meaningfully from his projections.
"Even if Moore's absolute numbers skew Democratic, his trend lines within his own polling series remain analytically useful. The direction of movement is meaningful — regardless of the baseline."
The Case for Taking the Trend Seriously
Here is where the analysis gets more nuanced — and more interesting. Dismissing Moore's polls entirely because of past inaccuracy would be as misleading as accepting them uncritically. The reason: trends within a consistent methodology are far more reliable than the raw numbers themselves.
When the same pollster applies the same survey instrument across multiple waves, the movement between waves reflects genuine change in the electorate — even if the baseline is off. And Moore's trend lines tell a remarkable story: Sullivan led this race by four points in July 2025. By October he was behind by two. By March 2026 he trails in the RCV simulation by nearly five. That is a nine-point swing in eight months — and it happened before Peltola had even formally announced her candidacy.
Sullivan's net favorability has deteriorated consistently across all three waves. More Alaskans are forming opinions about him — but the negative opinions are accumulating faster than the positive ones. That is a structural problem, not a statistical artifact.
Peltola, meanwhile, holds a net favorability of +7.2. In a state Trump carried by double digits, that number is remarkable. It suggests she has successfully positioned herself as a candidate who transcends partisan lines — the same quality that won her Alaska's House seat in 2022, first in a special election to replace the late Don Young, then in the November general election that same year.
Peltola lost her House seat in November 2024 to Republican Nick Begich III, when the GOP field consolidated behind a single candidate — eliminating the vote-splitting dynamic that had benefited her in 2022. That loss is directly relevant to 2026: it demonstrated that Peltola is beatable when Republicans unify, and it sets the stage for the question of whether Sullivan can consolidate the Republican base while she rebuilds her coalition for a Senate run.
The Sullivan campaign will almost certainly point to 2024 as evidence that Peltola's crossover appeal has limits. Her campaign will argue the Senate race is a different electorate, a different dynamic, and that her favorability numbers prove she remains viable. Both arguments have merit — and the tension between them is what makes this race worth watching.
Public Policy Polling's January survey is worth isolating, because it comes from a national firm without Moore's Alaska-specific history — and without his alleged Democratic lean in methodology. PPP found Peltola ahead by roughly two points, consistent with a genuine but narrow lead rather than a comfortable one.
The PPP number is the most important corroborating data point in the entire polling record. It suggests the race is real, competitive, and close — not a Peltola blowout, but not a Sullivan walkover either. Two points in January, eight months before primary season even concludes, is functionally a toss-up.
The Trump Factor: Alaska Flips to Disapproval
The single most important external variable in this race may already be moving against Sullivan — and it has nothing to do with Peltola's campaign strategy.
Alaska has historically been reliably Trump country. He carried the state by 14 points in 2024. But the political environment has shifted dramatically since then. Alaska is among the latest states in which more voters now disapprove than approve of Trump's job performance — a notable threshold crossed alongside Iowa, both previously considered red-leaning. That is a significant development for a state Sullivan has counted on as a foundation of his reelection coalition.
The Iran war has accelerated the damage. Trump's net approval rating has hit a second-term low of -16.7, driven in significant part by rising gas prices since the war began. His net approval on handling the economy stands at -21.3, and on inflation at -32.7 — both near second-term lows. The share of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump has reached a second-term high of 46.7 percent.
Trump's approval numbers have dropped below 40 percent in at least one national poll, with the Iran war cited as a key driver alongside rising inflation and fuel costs. Gas prices are acutely felt in Alaska, where residents depend heavily on fuel for heating, transportation, and subsistence living. A war-driven fuel price spike hits Alaskans harder than almost any other state in the union.
For Sullivan, this creates a structural bind. He has aligned himself closely with the Trump administration throughout his Senate tenure. If Trump's approval in Alaska continues to erode — particularly as fuel prices climb and the Iran conflict drags on — Sullivan absorbs that political cost directly. The midterm pattern of the president's party losing seats compounds the problem further.
The Variables Still in Play
The 12.7 percent undecided and minor-candidate pool remains live territory. Sullivan needs to win that group decisively. Given his net favorability of -10.7, that will be harder than the raw number implies — but not impossible if the Iran war concludes favorably or if economic conditions stabilize before November.
Alaska backed Trump by 14 points in 2024, and the structural Republican lean of the state has not evaporated. Sullivan still has incumbency advantages, a strong fundraising base, and the institutional support of the national Republican Party. The question is whether those advantages are sufficient to overcome a deteriorating presidential approval environment and Peltola's crossover appeal.
The Honest Bottom Line
Take Moore's absolute numbers with a grain of salt. His 2014 miss on Sullivan is too significant to ignore, and his documented Democratic lean means his RCV simulation showing Peltola at 52.4 percent is probably optimistic for Democrats.
But do not dismiss the trend — and do not ignore the environment. Sullivan led this race by four points in July 2025. He no longer does. Alaska has now crossed into net disapproval of Trump for the first time this term. The Iran war is driving gas prices upward in a state that feels fuel costs more acutely than almost anywhere else in the country. Five waves of ASR data, plus independent corroboration from PPP and Data for Progress, all point the same direction.
Alaska in 2026 is not a foregone conclusion. It is, however, a race where the structural indicators — polling trend, Trump's eroding approval, war-driven fuel costs, and Sullivan's underwater favorability — currently stack against the incumbent in ways that no amount of incumbency advantage fully neutralizes.
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