Another Alaska poll puts Peltola up five; our model barely moves

A Data for Progress survey of 575 likely voters in Alaska, fielded July 28 to August 4, has Democrat Mary Peltola at 50 percent and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan at 45 percent.

Our forecast did not follow the poll. The model now gives Peltola a 29 in 100 chance of winning the seat, with Sullivan at 71 percent. That is a point lower for Peltola than the previous run, completed at 12:30 a.m. ET on August 20, which had her at 30 percent. The projected margin moved from R+3.4 to R+3.7. Both figures sit inside a wide band: our current 5th-to-95th-percentile range runs from R+14.8 to D+7.3, which covers a comfortable Republican win and a modest Democratic one.

The short version is that this poll confirmed rather than changed. Peltola has been ahead in the survey data we have while the model has continued to lean to Sullivan, and the new numbers leave that gap intact. Our estimate weighs state and national fundamentals alongside polls, and a single 575-respondent survey with a field period ending August 4 does not carry enough weight on its own to close it. The small drift toward Sullivan reflects the run as a whole, not this poll.

Alaska matters to the chamber-wide picture. Our model has Democrats winning Senate control 48 percent of the time and Republicans 52 percent, with a mean of 50.2 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to them. On that math, a single seat decided by a few points is close to the whole question, and Alaska is one of the seats where our range is wide enough to go either way. Seventy-five days remain before the November 3 election.