By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 20, 2026 – Republicans Sen. Dan Sullivan, Congressman Nick Begich and Bernadette Wilson are all favored to win Alaska’s three marquee races in November, according to a new set of election forecasts from PollsMax.
The modeling site, which aggregates polls from a list of reputable sources, predicts Republicans will hold Alaska’s US Senate seat, retain the state’s lone US House seat and win the open governor’s race. Its national map also projects Republicans maintaining control of the US Senate with a 52-48 majority. The US House is more at risk of flipping.
The Alaska outlook reinforces other modeling by Race to the White House, which also predicts Wilson will win the governor’s race. Race to the White House has developed a strong record in congressional and statewide contests. During the 2022 election cycle, it reportedly called 96.5% of races correctly, missing only one Senate race, two governor’s races and 16 of the nation’s 435 House contests.
PollsMax is not a polling firm. It is one of several polling aggregators and election forecasters that collect publicly available surveys and combines them with other political fundamentals, including incumbency, previous election results, partisan lean and the national political environment.
The model then runs thousands of simulations to estimate the probability that each candidate will win. Those probabilities are not predicted vote shares, and they can change as new polling and campaign information become available.
In the Senate race, PollsMax gives incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan an 83.3% chance of defeating former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. Peltola is given a 16.7% chance.
The projected margin is Sullivan by 5.8 percentage points.
“While Peltola will make this race competitive, Alaska is simply too conservative to elect a Democrat,” the Election Time account on X wrote in highlighting the forecast Sunday.
Peltola remains a challenger with statewide name recognition, national Democratic support and the ability to raise substantial sums of money. But the model sees Alaska’s Republican voting history, Sullivan’s incumbency and the national political environment outweighing those advantages, in spite of a man from Petersburg with the same name filing for the seat in order to confuse voters.
Sullivan is seeking a third term. He first won the seat in 2014 by defeating Democratic Sen. Mark Begich and was reelected in 2020 with about 54% of the vote.
In the US House race, PollsMax favors Republican Congressman Nick Begich to win his first reelection campaign.
Begich defeated Peltola in 2024, returning Alaska’s only House seat to Republican hands after two years of Democratic control. He now enters the 2026 contest as the incumbent, with a considerable fundraising advantage and a growing record of legislative accomplishments during his first term.
His reelection prospects strengthened further when Democrat Matt Schultz abruptly suspended his campaign. That left undeclared candidate Bill Hill as Begich’s principal challenger.
Hill has said publicly that he would caucus with Democrats if elected. He has also worked to clear Democrats from the field so he can present himself as the only viable alternative to Begich under Alaska’s open-primary and ranked-choice voting system.
Recent Alaska Survey Research modeling showed Begich defeating either possible challenger. Begich led Schultz 55.6% to 44.4% in a hypothetical head-to-head contest and led Hill by an even wider 58.1% to 41.9%.
The third projected Republican winner is Kenai-born businesswoman Bernadette Wilson, who is running for governor with former Wasilla Sen. Mike Shower as her lieutenant governor candidate.
PollsMax gives Wilson an 85.8% chance of winning the open governor’s race and classifies Alaska as “Likely Republican.” In a modeled contest against Democrat Tom Begich (Nick’s Democrat uncle), Wilson leads 55.3% to 44.7%, a Republican margin of 10.6 percentage points.
Race to the White House also forecasts Wilson as the winner, giving her added momentum as Alaska approaches its Aug. 18 primary.
Wilson must first emerge from a crowded field that includes Republicans Click Bishop, Dave Bronson, Adam Crum, Treg Taylor and others. Democrats include Begich and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, while former Gov. Bill Walker and Lesil McGuire are running without party labels.
Alaska’s jungle primary advances the top four candidates, regardless of party, to the November general election. Ranked-choice voting is then used to determine the winner if no candidate receives a majority in the first count. A programmed computer sorts out the votes for second, third, and fourth places.
That squirrelly system makes any early forecast subject to change, especially in the governor’s race, where the large field of 17 and potential transfer of second- and third-choice votes add layers of uncertainty.
Still, two forecasting operations now point to Wilson as the likely winner, while PollsMax sees a broader Republican sweep of Alaska’s top races.
11 thoughts on “Forecast sweep: Sen. Dan Sullivan, Nick Begich and Bernadette Wilson all predicted to win Alaska’s three major races”
Why does Alaska fall for this. Mary has no chance, no D governor has no chance or anyone against Begich but the lamestream media hypes the D’s trying to make this a competitive state. As long as the oil flows, the R’s will win. The R’s need to tune out the media hype going on. Anchorage on the other hand needs the R’s help but they seem so stupid on the easy fixes they refuse to do, (initiative on the ballot to change voting date to Nov along with initiative to repeal Anchorage gas tax to get voters to ballot. Use R’s money to expose RINO’s in legislature and promote the right candidates).
Agree with Begich and Sullivan securing their seats. But not Bernadette. My prediction for August primary gubernatorial final four are: Bronson, Begich, Bishop, and ……
either Bernadette (rounding out the four B’s) or, Walker. Do not discount Walker. He will get last-minute bi-partisan support, especially now that there are no gas line deals coming out of Juneau.
A Wilson Win is a Democrat’s dream. They are preparing to drop a piano on her. Unless and until she comes completely clean regarding her messy personal life, and how well she is practicing her faith, she is going to LOSE the social-issue conservatives. She is hoping it will not become an issue. She is naive. Why doesn’t she do so NOW? Allowing it to remain a “whispering campaign” forces us to speculate.
You have a short memory, Bob. Trump in three elections (2-16, 2020 and 2024) demonstrated that personal peccadilloes don’t mean doodly squat anymore. Why are you dragging Bernadette’s personal history up unless you have chosen sides and hope it works to sully her reputation? And if so, which side are you on? Bronson, who demonstrated he couldn’t tame the Anchorage Assembly? Click Bishop? Someone else? Cheers –
“……… Trump in three elections (2-16, 2020 and 2024) demonstrated that personal peccadilloes don’t mean doodly squat anymore………”
Good point, but I don’t know if it works in Alaska. First, Trump slayed the RINOs, both the ones he ran against and any others who uttered a peep. And he slayed them well. Viciously. And when they tried to do it back, he came out unfazed, pissed, and vengeful. Unfortunately, I see nothing here among Republicans even close to that kind of whupping.
The social conservatives weren’t idiots for 3 Trump presidential runs. Why do you think they are idiots here in Alaska now, that is unless you want them to be? Cheers –
The Truth will set you free, Bernadette. OWN IT, and then move on.
Bob…….what the hell did Bernadette do? She’s Wally Hickel’s niece. She owns her own business. She cute, well spoken and conservative. Works for me
Republican voters need to keep a united front through the primary up to the November. No matter what Attacks they hear from those on the left against the Republican front runners. No matter one’s personal preference. RCV is not about you and your choice. It’s about making sure Your team crosses the finish line 🏁.
Until Alaskans raise a smarter and less illiterate generation of GenAlphas and GenBetas I think RCV will be here for awhile now (even going through multiple ballot initiatives to remove it, which this year it likely will be narrowly supported) and the Red Team is going to have to learn how to play as a team until one day they finally have the elect and voters to get rid of it.
I’ll say it again. Republican families. They need to pull their kids out of the Alaska public schools and homeschool unless they can afford 7000-12,000 tuition for a private school. So Republican parents today raise their children to vote Right.
Republican families who are paying large lifestyle expenses shouldn’t be afraid to downsize So they can pay a private school tuition from having a smaller house, less vehicles, no out of state vacations, no four wheelers, no RV, no Anchorage Hillside styled home that costs a fortune to maintain and pay its mortgage.
I know more alaskans on the Right can afford to send their children to a private school after they downsized their extravagant lifestyle.