Alaska’s 2026 election season has put two statewide races under a national spotlight, but they’re shaping up very differently. While the Senate contest between Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola remains close enough to keep both parties on edge, the race to replace term-limited Gov. Mike Dunleavy has quietly become one of the more favorable paths to victory for Democrats this cycle.
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Why Alaska’s Open Governor’s Race Favors Democrats
With Dunleavy barred from seeking a third term, Alaska’s governorship was always going to be competitive. But the shape of the field changed quickly once primary voting wrapped up. Democrat Tom Begich, who finished second in the August primary, dropped out and threw his support behind fellow Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
That consolidation gave Democrats a single standard-bearer heading into the general election, while three Republicans — Bernadette Wilson, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, and former Attorney General Treg Taylor — remain on the ballot competing for the same pool of conservative votes.
Kreiss-Tomkins vs. Wilson: Inside the Latest Polling
Betting markets and polling both point in the same direction, even if the margins differ. On Polymarket, contracts tied to a Kreiss-Tomkins win have traded at roughly 79 cents, giving him a clearer path than Peltola currently has in her own race. Recent surveys back that up: Alaska Survey Research’s early-October poll showed Kreiss-Tomkins ahead of Wilson 54% to 46% once the full ranked-choice count is modeled, while a late-September NYT/Siena poll put the race at 52% to 48%.
An early-September poll from Fabrizio Ward/Impact showed an even wider gap, with Kreiss-Tomkins leading 55% to 45%.
How a Split GOP Field Changed the Math
The clearest illustration of the Republican problem comes from the Alaska Survey Research numbers. Taken together, the three Republican candidates captured a narrow majority of first-choice votes — 52% to Kreiss-Tomkins’ 48%. On paper, that looks like a GOP advantage. In practice, it isn’t translating into one, because no single Republican is positioned to absorb the votes of the other two once they’re eliminated from the count.
What Ranked-Choice Voting Means for the Final Round
That gap between first-choice support and final-round outcomes is where Alaska’s ranked-choice system matters most. In the Alaska Survey Research poll, Republicans’ combined 52% first-choice share collapsed into a 46% finish for Wilson after redistribution, while Kreiss-Tomkins grew from 48% to 54%.
In other words, Wilson isn’t inheriting enough second- and third-choice votes from Bronson’s and Taylor’s supporters to close the gap — a sign that the Republican electorate itself may be fractured along more than just candidate-preference lines.
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Governor’s Race vs. Senate Race: Two Different Paths to a Democratic Win
The contrast with Alaska’s Senate race is notable. Peltola’s lead over Sullivan has held in a tight two-to-three-point band for weeks, and the two October polls that modeled ranked-choice transfers both showed her final margin at just two points. Kreiss-Tomkins’ cushion — four, eight, or ten points depending on the poll — is considerably larger.
That difference shows up in the betting markets too: Kreiss-Tomkins trades at a higher implied probability of winning than Peltola does, even though public enthusiasm and national attention have focused more heavily on the Senate contest.
Could Wilson Still Close the Gap?
Kreiss-Tomkins’ advantage isn’t locked in. It depends heavily on Republican voters continuing to split their support rather than coalescing behind Wilson. An endorsement from Bronson or Taylor could shift late movement in her direction, even without either candidate dropping out, and a meaningful share of voters in several polls remain undecided.
The next real test will be whether a fresh poll shows Wilson starting to gain ground in the modeled final round — if her numbers hold flat while Kreiss-Tomkins’ first-choice support grows, that’s a sign the Republican field’s fragmentation is here to stay through Election Day.
