A new poll shows Kreiss-Tomkins ahead, and why the number isn't the whole picture

The first independent poll of Alaska's governor's race since the primary shows Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the lone Democrat, well ahead on first choices.

The AARP survey of 800 likely Alaska voters, conducted Sept. 8 to 11 by a Republican firm, Fabrizio Ward, and a Democratic one, Impact Research, put Kreiss-Tomkins at 40 percent, Bernadette Wilson at 20, Dave Bronson at 14 and Treg Taylor at 7, with 18 percent undecided. The margin of error is 3.5 points.

Read one way, that is a 20-point lead. Read another, the three Republicans together hold 41 percent to Kreiss-Tomkins's 40, and the undecided voters lean their way: among swing voters 50 and older, the poll found 25 percent for Kreiss-Tomkins and 38 percent spread across the three Republicans. Alaska's ranked-choice ballot exists for exactly this situation, and the poll simulated it. When the survey eliminated the trailing candidates round by round and redistributed their voters' next choices, Kreiss-Tomkins finished ahead of Wilson, 55 to 45.

A quarter of respondents ranked neither Kreiss-Tomkins nor Wilson at all, which AARP said could significantly alter the outcome. In a race decided by which Republican voters' ballots transfer and which simply drop out, that quarter is the whole contest.

Alaska has seen this before. In the 2022 special election for the U.S. House, 11,290 of the ballots that ranked Republican Nick Begich first listed no second choice. Those ballots dropped out when Begich was eliminated, and Mary Peltola, the Democrat, won the seat.

Wilson has seized on the poll to press the point. In a post on her campaign's Facebook page Monday, she cited the poll's finding that 33 percent of Bronson's voters and 19 percent of Taylor's rank no second choice. "When those votes drop out of the system, the Democrat wins. It's that simple," she wrote, and called on both men to suspend their campaigns and unite behind hers. Neither Bronson nor Taylor has withdrawn, or given any indication that they would.

Two blocs shape it. The first is the unaffiliated: nonpartisan and undeclared voters make up about 63 percent of Alaska's registered voters, 381,024 of 603,310 as of Sept. 3, according to the Division of Elections. Among independents, the poll found Kreiss-Tomkins leading 48 percent to Wilson's 14. The second is older voters, whom the pollsters' model puts at roughly two-thirds of the likely electorate. There Kreiss-Tomkins still leads, but narrowly: 39 percent to Wilson's 24 on first choices, and 51 to 49 in the final simulated round.

The poll has already moved the national ratings. The Cook Political Report shifted the race from Lean Republican to Toss Up on the strength of it, writing that Republicans "are rightly worried" about splitting the vote three ways. Cook noted its assessment also rests on private Democratic polling it said tracks with the AARP numbers.

Alaskans rank the four candidates Nov. 3. Voter registration closes Oct. 4.