Kamala Harris More Likely to Win Alaska Than Florida or Texas—Nate Silver

Polling analyst Nate Silver said on Sunday that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is more likely to win Alaska than Florida or Texas in November’s election.

The only time a Democratic presidential candidate won Alaska was in 1964 when President Lyndon B. Johnson was elected. The Republican Party has carried the state by comfortable double-digit margins in recent cycles, however, former President Donald Trump’s margin did shrink in the Last Frontier State between 2016 and 2020.

Silver, who is the founder of ABC News’ poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight and considered one of the leading polling analysts in the United States, created a presidential model for November’s election, which has given some insight into Harris’ chances in Alaska.

“Our model gives Harris a 22 percent chance of carrying Alaska: considerably higher than her chances in Florida or Texas, for instance,” Silver said in a Substack blog post from Sunday.

He continued: “Its Voter Power Index—essentially, the marginal value of an additional vote—is actually the seventh-highest in the country because although there’s only about 1 percent chance that it’s the tipping-point state, it also has relatively few voters. (Only 344,000 in 2020, when Trump won it by 10 points.)”

Silver is no longer affiliated with ABC News or FiveThirtyEight.

Newsweek reached out to Harris and Trump’s campaigns via email for comment on Sunday evening.

In his first election against Hillary Clinton, Trump carried the state by nearly 15 points, but that went down to a lead of 10 points when he was up against President Joe Biden—which is the smallest Republican margin in a presidential race since 1992.

Silver asked of a scenario where Harris wins the presidency with help from Alaska, “Is this some sort of progressive election nerd wet dream? Yeah, probably. But our election model’s job is to think through every plausible scenario. And it thinks this contingency is possible, albeit unlikely.”

In the scenario, Harris would’ve gotten 271 electoral votes, just one more than the 270-vote threshold needed, by winning the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona and winning Alaska. Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, would win the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina in this scenario.

How Are the Candidates Doing in the Polls?

New polling conducted by Alaska Survey Research from September 11 to 12, after Tuesday night’s ABC News presidential debate between Harris and Trump, showed the Democrat down by 5 points with likely voters in the Northwestern state. Harris had the support of 42 percent of respondents whereas Trump had the backing of 47 percent.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was running as an independent but endorsed Trump in late August, received 5 percent support. An additional 6 percent said they were still undecided. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they had watched the debate between Harris and Trump, with 52 percent saying Harris had won.

The poll included 1,254 likely Alaskan voters. The margin of error and confidence level were not posted with the results.

Meanwhile, Trump leads Harris by 6.5 points (50.5 to 44 percent) in Texas, according to averages collected by poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.

Although Trump also leads Harris in Florida, it’s a closer race. Trump is ahead of Harris by 4.3 points in the Sunshine State (49.5 to 45.2 percent), according to FiveThirtyEight.