Politics of Alaska

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Although in its early years of statehood, Alaska was a Democratic state, since the early 1970s it has been characterized as Republican-leaning.^[1] Local political communities have often worked on issues related to land use development, fishing, tourism, and individual rights. Alaska Natives, while organized in and around their communities, have been active within the Native corporations. These have been given ownership over large tracts of land, which require stewardship. The state has an independence movement favoring a vote on secession from the United States, with the Alaskan Independence Party, but its membership has shrunk in recent decades (to 18,725 as of 2022).^[2][3]

Alaska regularly supports Republicans in presidential elections and has done so since statehood. Republicans have won the state's electoral college votes in every election except Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 landslide. No state has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate fewer times. The 1960 and 1968 elections were close, however, since 1972, Republicans have consistently carried the state by large margins. However, in 2012 and 2020, Democrats obtained over 40% of the vote in the state for the first time since the 1960s.

The communities of Juneau, Sitka, downtown and midtown Anchorage, the areas surrounding the college/University of Alaska Fairbanks campus and Ester and the "Alaska Bush" – rural, sparsely populated Alaska – stand out as Democratic strongholds, while the Kenai Peninsula, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, parts of Anchorage, and Fairbanks (including North Pole and Eielson Air Force Base), Ketchikan, Wrangell, and Petersburg serve as the Republican Party electoral base. Over half of all registered voters have chosen "Non-Partisan" or "Undeclared" as their affiliation.^[4]