Peltola leads by six in new AARP-sponsored Alaska poll; our forecast is unchanged

A Fabrizio Ward/Impact Research poll sponsored by AARP, of 800 likely voters fielded September 8-11, puts Democrat Mary Peltola at 53 percent and Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan at 47 percent in the Alaska Senate race. That is a wider Peltola margin than the polls we have written about here in recent weeks, which had her up five and then split the race within a point.

Our forecast did not move. The model gives Peltola a 24 in 100 chance and Sullivan 76 percent, with a mean margin of R+7.4. Those are the same figures as the run earlier on September 17, at 10:32 AM ET, which also had Peltola at 24 percent and a mean margin of R+7.4. The only change is at the edge of the distribution: the 5th-to-95th percentile band now runs from R+24.6 to D+10.1, against R+24.8 to D+10.1 before.

The gap between the polling and the model is not new, and this survey does not narrow it. Our average continues to weigh Alaska's prior voting patterns and the national environment alongside the state's polls, and a single 800-person sample showing a six-point Peltola edge sits inside a range our simulations already treat as plausible. The model's spread here is wide in both directions.

Nationally, our average on the generic ballot is D+7.2 across 27 polls in the past 45 days. In the Senate, our model gives Democrats a 47 percent chance of winning control against 53 percent for Republicans, with a mean of 50.0 Democratic seats; Democrats need 51 seats and Republicans 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to their side. Alaska is one of the seats that keeps that number close to even.