Like Vance and Trump, Cruz will campaign for Sullivan in a Republican-leaning region

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will join U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan for a public campaign rally in Kenai on Saturday, the latest national Republican to come to Alaska for Sullivan in the final weeks before the Nov. 3 election.

Sullivan's campaign announced the rally in a Facebook post. It is scheduled for 1:30 pm at the Challenger Learning Center on the Kenai Spur Highway. Cruz is also scheduled to speak Friday at the Alaska Republican Party's Winter Gala in Anchorage, a ticketed event.

Cruz follows Vice President J.D. Vance, who campaigned for Sullivan in Fairbanks on Oct. 5, and President Donald Trump, who held a rally for Sullivan in Wasilla on Tuesday.

Where they're going

Each visit has landed in a different region, and all three are regions that voted Republican in the last two elections, according to an Alaska News analysis of Division of Elections precinct results.

Mary Peltola's own statewide races give a measure of how the Democrat runs in each place. In her 2024 race for the U.S. House, which she lost to Republican Nick Begich, she won 29% of first-choice votes in the Mat-Su House districts, where Trump held his rally. She won 35% on the Kenai Peninsula and 43% in the Fairbanks-area districts. In the 2024 presidential race, Trump won those three regions with 72%, 66% and 58% of the vote.

Of the three, the Fairbanks area is the most divided. In 2024, the district covering much of the city of Fairbanks voted for Trump by about 3 points and for Peltola by about 11. The district that takes in the university and Ester went for Peltola by 16 points, while the North Pole district went for Begich by 42.

The Kenai Peninsula is not uniform either. In the Kenai-Soldotna district, where Saturday's rally will be held, Begich beat Peltola by 32 points in 2024. In the Homer-area district to the south, the margin was about 6 points, the closest on the peninsula. Peltola won about 46% of first-choice votes there in 2022 and 44% in 2024.

The public stops have been outside Anchorage and Eagle River, where about 40% of 2024 House votes were cast and Peltola won 53% of first choices.

The race

Sullivan, seeking a third term, faces Peltola, a former congresswoman, in Alaska's ranked-choice general election. The candidates were scheduled to debate Thursday night. The race also includes two other candidates, including Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. of Petersburg, who shares the senator's name. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and ballots can transfer to each voter's next choice.

Cruz has longstanding ties to Alaska Republicans. He won the state party's 2016 presidential preference poll and also campaigned for Sullivan in 2020.

How we did this: Alaska News added up precinct results from the Division of Elections for the 2022 and 2024 general elections by state House district, then grouped districts into regions. The Mat-Su covers Districts 25 through 30, the Kenai Peninsula Districts 6 through 8, the Fairbanks area Districts 31 through 35, and Anchorage and Eagle River Districts 9 through 24. House race figures are first-choice votes.