Can Alaska Save the Senate Majority for Republicans?

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0:31From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Can Republicans save their Senate majority? That's the question consuming political Washington right now as the Republicans are defending seven or eight seats out of their 53-seat majority in the current election. While Democrats are facing a serious challenge to only three, and those may be hard to win. So we'll give you a competitive update on the Senate landscape. But first, let's take you to Alaska, which was ground zero this week in the Senate campaign as Donald Trump visited there to support incumbent Dan Sullivan against Democrat Mary Peltola.

1:15Our Kim Strasso was on the ground during the visit and is closely following the race that could decide if Republicans do retain their majority. Welcome to Potomac Watch. I'm Paul Gigo here on our daily podcast. And Kim, welcome. Good to see you. Hi, Paul. So what message was Trump trying to drive home to Alaskans in that visit? He had a big crowd, which he showed up on true social, big crowd. So what message was he trying to drive home? And did he, against all contrary past evidence, stick to the message?

1:51So sticking to the message, I think it was a so-so thing, Paul. But it was pretty good for a Trump rally. Look, his job here, and you can question, I think, some of the locations he's chosen for some of these rallies. But this was a wise move on the White House and the Dan Sullivan campaigns part. They had him come out to a part of Alaska called the Matanutska-Susitna Valley, which is the beating heart of conservative politics in the state. And this is important because this is Dan Sullivan's biggest challenge is motivating Republicans to get to the polls. And the message of the rally was pretty simple and pretty straightforward.

2:32It was, you know, under Joe Biden and under Democrats, this state, which is uniquely hostage to federal policy, given how much of its land is owned by the federal government. Under Joe Biden, this Alaska went into lockdown because Democrats and the green radicals in their party essentially hate all kind of industry in Alaska, in particular oil and gas production and mining, which is the vast majority of the state's economic productivity. So they had all these rules and restrictions. Donald Trump came back in and working with Dan Sullivan has reversed almost all of those terrible things, plus provided a lot of new economic opportunity for the state.

3:15A vote for Mary Peltola is to go back to the bad old days. So that was the message. And I think he did get that across. So let's look at a little background, Kim, on why this race is even competitive. It's a Republican-leaning state. Dan Sullivan's a two-term senator. Mary Patola was recruited expressly by Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader for the race. She's a former House member from Alaska, but she lost a bid for re-election. Now she's going back to try to get a promotion to the Senate. Unhappiness with Trump, or is it inflation prices cost a living? It's almost entirely inflation prices cost a living.

3:57And you have to remember, Paul, so to live in Alaska, you already are dealing with a 10 percent, 15 percent premium just because you live so remotely and things are more expensive. They have to travel up from the continent or outside the state. Pretty much everything does. So you live here, you know that it's going to be a little bit more spendy. I mean, you can still get a lot more affordable housing than you can in obviously like big cities down in the lower 48. But price of goods are high. So when those go higher, in particular gas and oil prices, heating prices up here, it's very noticeable.

4:31Wages have not necessarily been rising. There's some good new job opportunities here, but they're just beginning. And so what Mary Peltola is doing, which is very savvy of her, is pretending as though she's never even heard of this thing called the Democratic Party. She is the state's best known Democrat, but you would never know that she's even heard the name Chuck Schumer. She's leaning very hard into her native Alaskan roots, positioning herself as uniquely capable of recognizing the state's needs. And then, you know, excoriating politicians in D.C., self-dealing and corrupt people like Dan Sullivan, who are rigging the system against Alaska.

5:12because she spends a lot of time talking about Donald Trump's tariffs and talking about health care prices up here. So essentially blaming high prices on the Trump administration and then just wrapping Mr. Sullivan around him. But, you know, at the same time, praising former Republican leaders like Don Young, just because she wants everyone to know she's she's good with Republicans, but she just wants ones that care more about the state than Dan Sullivan does. That's her message. All right. Let's listen to the senator, Dan Sullivan, on stage. at that rally with the president, focus in on linking Mary Peltola to the Democrats.

5:49My opponent has said her first vote would be to make Chuck Schumer Senate majority leader. A big boo on that. And Schumer has said his pathway to becoming Senate majority leader comes through Alaska. OK, he says if he flips his seat, by the way, it's not my seat, it's your seat. If he flips this seat, he will become Senate Majority Leader for the United States. Now, look, ladies and gentlemen, I know this guy really well. This would be horrible for Alaska. The D.C. Democrats don't have a positive agenda for Alaska. They have a target on Alaska. But this would also be horrible for the country we love, for the great United States of America.

6:35So ladies and gentlemen, especially here in the Mat-Su Valley, we need to understand Alaska is the firewall for freedom for the entire country. Well, there you have it, Kim, driving home that message, linking Paltola to the Democrats and to the anti-Alaska agenda, which is more than just a political talking point. It's a real fact because we wrote about this all throughout the Biden administration. And going back to the Obama administration, the Democrats really do want to lock up most of Alaska from development. And there was a particularly telling vote I want you to elaborate on for our listeners.

7:16In the United States Senate, before they headed out for recess before the election, where a bill that Dan Sullivan and some other sponsored wanted to bring up to a vote in the Senate, which would have protected the state from the rollback of some of these development moves that the administration, Trump administration, has allowed in Alaska. and Democrats in the Senate blocked it. But what is really interesting here in the context of this specific race is that Mary Peltola, when she was in the House, claimed to support something similar. And yet when it came up to time to vote, she voted present.

7:55That is P-R-E-S-E-N-T, present, which means she just simply didn't want to speak up for those Alaskan interests, development, economic development in the state. So she basically punted. And that's her entire history. I mean, the good news for Dan Sullivan is there is a record to point to. She was the House representative for Alaska for two years. And what that record shows is that every single time the left demanded that she roll, she rolled and put Alaska last. She absolutely saluted to the green environmental agenda. And that bill you were talking about in 2024, she was actually a co-sponsor of it.

8:35And then when it finally came to the floor and what it would have done, it would have reversed the Biden administration's cancellation of some oil and gas leases in ANWR, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. And when it came time to vote, the best she could do was just vote present. She would not support the bill. And there's a lot more like that. In 2023, she voted against a bill that would have opened up more of the National Petroleum Reserve. She voted against an energy package that would have expedited permitting, which is a very important issue in Alaska. She voted against a bill that would have provided loan guarantees to this enormous project that Alaskans have been trying to get across the line for 50 years, a proposed liquid natural gas pipeline, 800 mile pipeline.

9:23And when the time came, she said no. And so this is Dan Sullivan's challenge is he when he was up on stage, he actually held up, used to walk around with this piece of paper showing the 70 different restrictions that Biden had put on the state of Alaska, noting that Alaska was was more severely sanctioned than even Iran. And, you know, he held it up on stage at the rally, talked about everything that the Trump administration, he had reversed and then ripped it up on stage. He's got to get that message across that, you know, short voter memories. But just two years ago, this state was looking at economic oblivion.

10:04And now it's arguably from a developmental perspective in a better position than it has ever been. We are going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about the referendum on ranked choice voting repeal. in Alaska when we come back. Why can't we get AI to production? Our competitors are all ready. How do we keep data secure? When do we actually see ROI? All this talk about AI, but talk doesn't transform businesses. AWS AI cuts through the noise, making AI easier to securely deploy and scale. With ready-to-use agents and the broadest set of AI tools and services, you can build, buy, or partner your way.

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11:38Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo here on Potomac Watch with Kim Strassel talking about the Alaska Senate races and the contest for the Senate. All right. Let's talk about the particular complications in this race. One is that there is another Dan Sullivan with a different middle initial on the ballot that looks to have been a dirty trick that the Democrats ginned up to confuse voters. And if they split the Dan Sullivan vote, as it were, that will help Peltola. Peltola denies any paternity here. But Dan Sullivan, too, is pretty close ties to Democratic politicians. And it looks like that is a dirty trick.

12:22So that could take away votes from the incumbent. But the second thing is this ranked choice of voting in Alaska, the system that is in different parts around the country. New York City, we have it for the Democratic primaries. In Alaska, it's for the Senate race and others. And that could be a problem for Sullivan, too. Why don't you explain how that would work? Yeah. So this is what makes the sort of decoy Dan, as he's being called, thing particularly malicious up here because, and by the way, he does have a record. He actually voted for Mary Paltola, donated money to Mary Paltola in the past.

12:58He's been a supporter. So it does seem to be a dirty trick. But here's the problem. Under Alaska's system, there's an open primary and then the top four candidates go and you have to rank them and in order of your preference. And it's a very complex system in which there are different rounds of counting. And depending on who you voted for, your ballot may be exhausted or it could go to your next choice. But voters are going to be presented with this ballot that shows two Dan Sullivans sitting there. One of them is actually going to be, we'll have the word incumbent after his name. That was a success for the Dan Sullivan campaign, just getting that done because of the confusion question.

13:39But not only is there a risk that people vote for the wrong Dan Sullivan, meaning that they truly intend to return the current senator, but they just see a name Dan on the ballot and they vote for it. They don't recognize that they're getting the wrong one. And by the way, that decoy candidate got close to three percent of the vote in the primary and in a close race. That is enough to, you know, to swing this to Mary Peltola. But because of the complexity of this and the four people, there's there's only one Democrat running Mary Peltola. But now there's numerous Republicans. The Republican Party is having to engage in this very expensive, complex effort to try to educate Republican voters who are going to the polling booth.

14:19the best way to kind of game this system to make sure that the real Dan Sullivan wins, which essentially involves ranking all the Republican candidates. That's just not something that is easy to explain to voters. So in addition to the normal campaign questions about, you know, Trump and affordability and all of this, he's also trying to deal with this structural impediment, which is an election that is opaque and an election system that is opaque and confusing for many voters. Voters approved a referendum to impose ranked choice voting a few years back, and it was on the ballot for repeal and narrowly survived.

14:59Was it a couple of years ago, Kim? Two years ago, yes. Two years ago. And now there's another effort to repeal it on the ballot this time. The repeal vote proposition was so complicated last time that some people who wanted to repeal it thought they were voting to repeal it when they were actually voting to sustain it. This time, the language is a little clearer. Let's listen to Donald Trump tell voters what they should do on ranked choice voting. Make sure you vote yes on the ballot measure to repeal.

15:32You want to repeal ranked choice voting scam. It's a scam. You go in number one, you come out number two, number three. Nobody knows what they're doing back there. They know what they're doing. It's a scam. It's a Democrat scam. And you got to repeal it. You got to get out if for no other reason you got to repeal rank choice. It's a joke all over the country and everyone else is repealing it. Where does the polling stand on the rank choice voting referendum? You know, Alaska doesn't have a lot of polling in general, so it's hard to know. But I will tell you this, that it was so close last time it came down to about a thousand votes.

16:13And we know for a fact, as you could hear there, the problem two years ago was to get rid of rank choice voting. you had to vote yes. You had to vote yes to say no to ranked choice voting. It just confused a lot of people. We know from exit surveys that were done as voters were coming out that probably like one in three voters, at least in certain jurisdictions, voted the wrong way in that, you know, they came out and said, how'd you vote? They said voted no. And that meant they were voting to keep it. And, you know, you'd ask them, like, why'd you vote? No. It's like, I hate ranked choice voting.

16:42So we know that there was an honest mistakes. I think you add into the trickery and the gamesmanship you have now been seeing, it really is turning off a lot of Alaskans. So if there's ever a chance that this might get through, especially as this year, as you can see, everyone's been getting the message out about the right way to vote. The president actually had voters repeat over and over, yes on to, yes on to, so that they would know which way they were supposed to vote. I think there's a good shot that this actually goes away in keeping with the way many states are going, a lot of them have been rejecting this or getting rid of rank choice.

17:20Well, you want elections to be about debating the issues and the candidates and what they stand for. I mean, that's hard enough for those messages to get through to voters who may not be paying attention. It's hard to break through so much media in this country. You want them to be debating that. And instead, you have the candidates saying, in a multiple candidate race, well, look, If you don't vote for me, you know, vote for X, second, and Y, third, because that will make it harder for my opponent to win on the second or third voting count. And it just gets very complicated and confusing for low-attention voters and even high-attention voters.

17:59When I go in to vote in New York, don't know quite exactly how to play this. Yeah, you essentially end up needing a PhD to go into the voting booth, which is intimidating. There's actually good evidence to suggest to Paul that ranked choice voting actually diminishes voter turnout because people are so intimidated by it. They just don't want to take part in it. You want voting to be something that people want to do to be excited to go exercise their civic duty. It also, in addition to the confusion for voters, it also may see as elections about party gamesmanship instead of about the issues, because it's all about which party has more discipline to get their candidates.

18:39It's a good example here in our governor's race, even though this is a Republican state. Democrats kept getting they had the final four and all the Democrats kept dropping out until they just had one Democrat on the ballot. And there are three Republicans. And it it it almost makes it unless everybody knows perfectly how to use ranked choice voting. It makes it much more likely that the Democrat will win just because the Republicans will all end up splitting the vote. We are going to take another break and we come back. We'll broaden the conversation to talk about just how the larger contest for the Senate across the country is playing out when we come back.

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20:06From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo here with Kim Strassel. Let's broaden this a bit before we end today's podcast to talk about where the Senate races stand. It looks to me like there's been some closing in some of the polls in races that are important here, particularly in Maine with Susan Collins trying to defend her seat. She's gained ground. Maybe in Ohio, John Husted, the incumbent, seems to have gained some ground against Sherrod Brown. That could go down to the wire. That's a Democratic pickup possibility, as is Maine. But some of these other seats are really, really close.

20:49And I'm thinking, you know, North Carolina looks like that's lost. Democrats will win that. The Republicans have pulled money out. That's a pickup. That's a pickup. So that gets you down to 52. Georgia, people had hoped to be able to defeat John Ossoff. That looks forlorn. Republicans have moved money out of there. But you've got Ohio, Texas, Alaska, as we've discussed, Iowa, Kansas, maybe Nebraska, and Maine, all competitive, which a lot of those states are solidly Republican states, and yet they're vulnerable this year. And then you have only three seats that are real potential pickups for Republicans.

21:29One is Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed is running against Mike Rogers. You have John Sununu running in New Hampshire in an open seat against Congressman Pappas on the Democratic side. He's still, you know, somewhat behind, but he has a name and a history that at least gives him a shot in that state. And then Michelle Tafoya, the former CBS newscaster running in Minnesota, has a chance. She's still trailing the lieutenant governor who is saddled with Mike Waltz's governorship, all of the corruption and fraud in social programs. So how do you see that landscape now? Is it going to be very tough for Republicans to hold the majority?

22:13So here's the latest I'm hearing from people that are down on the ground is, I mean, North Carolina is essentially gone, GOP isn't even running money there. So that's a lossy. And by the way, I just would like to note that that is a Donald Trump mistake there. Tom Tillis, who is the current Republican senator, he probably could have won reelection in that state, be tough, but he'd be the best shot. But Trump beat on him so badly, he decided he was going to leave. So they They had to start from ground zero and that's gone. Georgia, as you said, John Ossoff, the Democrat, has just been a fundraising and campaigning juggernaut.

22:47The GOP spent most of its summer in a nasty primary fight and they've never been able to kind of recover from that. There are some states where the Republicans are having to put money that they'd really rather not. You mentioned Nebraska, for instance, and Kansas, although people feel as though if Republicans put some money in there, that in the end their candidates will be OK. So that's kind of how they're viewing that. They feel good, too, about the candidates in some of these places and the races that they are running. Like Susan Collins is doing a great job in Maine. Ashley Hinson in Iowa is also running a great race in the state of Iowa.

23:22And Dan Sullivan's doing a good job in Alaska. But the issue is just even having great candidates and doing a good job. Is it enough to overcome the voter mood at the moment? And then then you get, as you mentioned, Ohio, which is a really a big concern and is costing a ton of money. And they're still very concerned because Sherrod Brown's name recognition. That's going to be a tough race. And then there's Texas, right? A state that shouldn't even be a problem for Republicans. But the president endorsed Cam Paxton. And one of the biggest griefs that people have out there right now is that state is sucking up so much money.

23:57It's depriving Republicans from shoring up their candidates elsewhere. Ten days ago, I was told by Karl Rove, who is a Texan and follows the stuff that the Republicans have already put in$135 million into the Paxton race. Paxton doesn't raise a lot of money on his own. Awful fundraiser. So these are outside groups that are putting money in on his behalf. And now, you know, by some accounts, it's going to be maybe$200 million. If not yet, it's going to be before the end of the race. that's money that had John Cornyn been running in the race and Trump not had jumped on Paxton, then you could have spent that money in a New Hampshire, in a Minnesota, in Ohio or elsewhere, and shored up some of these seats and maybe, you know, gain some.

24:42So it's talk about on own goal by Trump. And it could be costly. And the thing about this kind of year, Kim, when you have these big mood swings in the electorate. And the Trump undertow is really serious. It's now his approval rating in the latest Fox poll, I think, is 38 percent. So the undertow is enormous. Everywhere you go, the Democrats are running the same kind of cookie cutter campaign. Affordability, Donald Trump is to blame. Trump, Trump, Trump, and wrap Trump around the neck of the Republican candidate. And it's so strong that you could get the kind of sweep where Democrats picked up maybe seven and eight seats.

25:22Just one other thing on that, too. Just Donald Trump's not only made, I think, some pretty big goofs in terms of endorsements in this election and his treatment of candidates. But I don't think the people have fully realized when you watch Mary Peltola in this state go around and talk about the affordability thing, the reality is an enormous degree of the high prices here are still a hangover and caused by Democratic policies. Right. Sure. The Biden inflation. Yeah, it's totally Biden inflation. You know, in a lot of places, for instance, if you're looking at high energy prices, especially the Northeast, it's entirely Democratic policies, you know, net zero emissions policies and renewable energy things, all Democratic policies.

26:03But the minute Donald Trump decided to impose his first tariff, he gave them everything they needed to say that every price rise was a result of him. And you watch Mary Peltola up here. She uses the words tariffs every two seconds. And you'd think that that is why things are kind of spandy here is entirely because of Donald Trump's tariffs. Now, some of that is true. Some of that is true. But it's not most of it. But he gave them an enormous, an enormous advantage with his tariffs. The tariffs are really a big issue in Texas. Tallarico, James Tallarico is using it against Paxton and Texas. Of course, Texas has huge amounts of trade with Canada and Mexico.

26:42In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed is using the tariffs and the trade war with Canada against Mike Rogers. And in the Midwest, the farm states, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, tariffs are a big issue and very helpful for Democrats. And even helpful in Ohio, which is, believe it or not, he has considerable agricultural business. So, you know, the tariffs are really hurting. And I couldn't agree more with your analysis of that. The thing I would say is, if you're looking for Republican silver lining, a couple of sources that I talked to still think there's a decent chance a road to getting to 50, which would be 50-50.

27:19And then, of course, with the vice president casting the deciding vote, Republicans would retain their majority. But that means most things have to go right for Republicans. They probably have to pick up one of those Democratic seats to have that happen. Last word, Kim. Yeah. So I'm also hearing this, too. I spoke to a number of grassroots groups, including ones that were door knocking up here on Sullivan's behalf. And they report back that, especially in the last two or three weeks, they've seen a begin to turn. They begin to see more voters expressing an interest in coming out to the polls and supporting Republicans, being reminded of some of the good things that the GOP has done since it's been in charge, reminding them of some of the bad Democratic policies that were around under Schumer.

28:07So it's taking voters a little bit longer to tune in, but there is some evidence of that. And I think you're starting to see it. The polls are tightening a little bit in some areas, which it may not sound like great news, but for Republicans who had been watching it on a one way, you know, just getting worse and worse and worse, this is a little bit of a hopeful moment for them. Thank you, Kim Strassel. Thank you all for listening to Potomac Watch. We are here every day on the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening. Why can't we get AI to production? Our competitors are all ready.

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