Alaska may tend to vote for Republicans in state wide elections, but whether it involves a successful write in campaign, a second place Libertarian finisher, or an independent gubernatorial victory, their races are rarely boring. This year, the Last Frontier has added an extra wrinkle to its elections, adopting a top-four runoff election some Twitter users are trying to label a “tundra primary.” Under the new system, all candidates seeking a particular office run on the same primary ballot, and the top four finishers advance into the general election, where voters rank their choices from 1 to 4. If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote after the first round of balloting, the fourth place finisher is eliminated and their voters’ second place choices receive their votes, and so on and so forth until a candidate gets a majority.

This makes our projection for this seat fairly easy, but also a little disingenuous. Thanks to the results of the primary and the state’s Republican lean, it’s easy to rate Alaska as at least a Likely Republican state, since three of the available candidates are Republicans and there probably aren’t enough Democrats to consolidate behind university administrator Pat Chesbro, the lone Democrat. With apologies to hydraulic mechanic Buzz Kelley, who finished fourth in the primary, the only two candidates who really have a shot at winning this election are incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski and former Alaska Department of Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka, both of whom represent opposing ends of the Republican coalition. 

Tshibaka is the self-proclaimed “America First“ candidate who thinks Murkowski is too liberal to represent Alaska, and as such has received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. Murkowski, of course, is perhaps the most moderate member of the Senate’s Republican Caucus, having voted to remove Trump after January 6th, introduced a post-Dobbs bill to protect abortion rights, and even threatened to leave the Republican Party. These positions have made her very popular among Democrats both in the Senate (New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and Maine’s Angus King have both more or less endorsed her) and within her constituency, and could act as her saving grace come November. 

As of this writing, Murkowski currently holds 45% of the primary vote to Tshibaka’s 38.6%. Assuming the first round of the general election shakes out in an equivalent manner, Murkowski will be in the driver’s seat to win in the subsequent rounds of balloting, where most of Chesbro’s Democratic supporters are expected to rank her second (assuming most Democrats won’t just rank Murkowski first anyway). Of course, it’s entirely possible that some voters won’t rank anyone else on their ballot, which can make the math pretty complicated and unpredictable, so Tshibaka pulling out a close victory remains a distinct possibility. About the only thing that is certain is that Alaska will stay some shade of red and, as the state’s special election for the House has demonstrated, it could take weeks before all of the votes are finally collected and a winner is declared. Even though Murkowski and Tshibaka belong to the same party, their ideological differences should still make this race a thrilling one to watch.

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