United States presidential elections in Alaska

Presidential elections in Alaska
Map of the United States with Alaska highlighted
Number of elections16
Voted Democratic1
Voted Republican15
Voted other0
Voted for winning candidate9
Voted for losing candidate7

Since Alaska's admission to the Union in January 1959,[1][2] it has participated in 16 United States presidential elections, always having 3 electoral votes. In the 1960 presidential election, Alaska was narrowly won by the Republican Party's candidate and incumbent vice president Richard Nixon, defeating the Democratic Party's candidate John F. Kennedy by a margin of just 1.88% (1,144 votes).[3][4] In the 1964 presidential election, the Democratic Party's candidate Lyndon B. Johnson won Alaska in a national Democratic landslide victory.[5][6] Since the 1964 election, Alaska has been won by the Republican Party in every presidential election.[7] However, no Republican candidate has gotten 55% of the statewide vote since 2008.

Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate in the 1984 presidential election, won Alaska by 36.78%,[8] which remains the largest margin of victory in the state's history. Ross Perot, the independent candidate in the 1992 presidential election, received the highest vote share (28.43%)[9] ever won by a third-party candidate in Alaska. Various news organizations have characterized Alaska as a safe Republican state.[10][11][12] No Republican has won the presidency without carrying Alaska since its statehood in 1959 due to Lyndon B. Johnson being the only Democrat candidate to ever carry the state. Alaska is tied with Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma for the longest Republican voting streak for any state in recent political history, from 1968 to present.

  1. ^ Mooney, Richard E. (January 4, 1959). "Alaska Becomes the 49th State". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  2. ^ "Alaska Statehood". Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  3. ^ Guide to U.S. Elections 2010, p. 789.
  4. ^ Slotnick, Herman E. (1961). "The 1960 Election in Alaska". The Western Political Quarterly. 14 (1). University of Utah Press: 300–304. doi:10.2307/443850. JSTOR 443850.
  5. ^ Slotnick, Herman E. (1965). "The 1964 Election in Alaska". The Western Political Quarterly. 18 (2). University of Utah Press: 439–442. doi:10.2307/445288. JSTOR 445288. S2CID 187243432.
  6. ^ "The Johnson Landslide". The New York Times. November 4, 1964. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  7. ^ Leip, David. "Presidential General Election Graph Comparison – Alaska". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1984 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Guide to U.S. Elections 2010, p. 797.
  10. ^ Jones, Jeffrey M. (February 14, 2015). "Massachusetts, Maryland Most Democratic States". Gallup Polls. Archived from the original on July 25, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  11. ^ "Alaska Presidential Result". CNN. December 2, 2020. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved October 9, 2021.
  12. ^ Weigel, David (September 22, 2020). "The 50 political states of America". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 11, 2020. Retrieved October 9, 2021.