AK-GOV: Walker (I) Drops Out

[Oryxslayer]

I would say this deserves a return to the tossup catergory until we get new polling.

[Oryxslayer]

I would say this deserves a return to the tossup catergory until we get new polling.

Lean-R

Those are theoretical though. People will likely act differently now that Dunleavy v. Begich is a real thing rather than a theoretical.

Considering that Walker's name will still be on the ballot I wouldn't presume Begich is favored here. But we'll see, it obviously needs to be repolled.

My thoughts exactly. I still think the race is Lean R, but all previous polling is either now useless or was polling a hypothetical which was always preseumed to be a hypothetical.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1053426570914881536?s=19

[Oryxslayer]

Too bad this probably won't affect much (including the AK-AL House seat) and Alaska is notorious for bad polling.

I was just going to post this.... although "tough state to poll" argument generally sounds like a truism, in this case it is true, and at lease according to a previous poster generally VbM / Early Voting hasn't started yet in Alaska....

Still Lean R is a safe bet at this point...

About 23,000 absentee ballots are out, and 3,000 have been returned as of this evening. More are probably in the mail before Walker dropped out. That's about 1% of the 2014 AK Gov votes. But in-person early voting doesn't start until next week.

Assuming best case scenario here, losing ~1700 votes out of 140,000 won't impact Begich that much. A more likely scenario still has them not mattering, but that because Begich gets only 120,000 or so and loses the election. Only in the closest of elections will these lost votes matter.