Republicans have been taking desperate steps to ensure that Alaska, a long-deep-red state, does not flip blue in the coming midterms. But with the state's primary underway, there are "awfully good" signs that the GOP has reason to worry as November approaches.

That is the view of conservative political analyst Chris Stirewalt, a longtime contributor to right-wing media outlets such as Fox and NewsNation, who wrote in The Hill on Friday that the strong primary performance of Alaskan Democrats could provide an "invaluable look at where voters are heading in a general election." Stirewalt is no stranger to delivering unwelcome news to the right: as Fox News' politics editor, he was let go in early 2021 after the network's early — and ultimately correct — Arizona call for Joe Biden drew an outcry from Trump supporters.

Alaska is currently in the middle of its nonpartisan primary, in which candidates from all parties compete on a ranked-choice ballot. The system was adopted by Alaska voters through a 2020 ballot measure that replaced party primaries with a single open contest that sends the top four finishers to a ranked-choice general election, making Alaska one of only two states, along with Maine, to use ranked-choice voting in federal races. As Stirewalt notes, Trump ally and donor Elon Musk has provided financial backing to an effort to repeal the state's nonpartisan system and end its campaign finance laws, which would eliminate the requirement that candidates disclose "dark money" contributions. Alaska voters narrowly rejected an earlier repeal attempt in 2024. The broad conservative support for that effort suggests Republicans believe they would benefit from a traditional two-party ballot and less regulated campaign financing.

But if Musk's effort succeeds, Stirewalt argues, election forecasters could lose sight of Alaska's current political system. "With one of the latest primaries on the calendar," he wrote, "Alaska gives us an invaluable look at where voters are heading in a general election now just 74 days away." And, according to Stirewalt, the movement is toward Democrats.

"As of this writing, with perhaps as much as 20 percent of the vote presumably still drifting in on malamute dogsleds or carried like abalone in the paws of adorable sea otters," Stirewalt wrote of the Senate race, "former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is the top vote-getter in Alaska's nonpartisan primary, leading incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by more than 5 points." He also said that when the current standings for all Republicans are totaled against all Democrats on the ballot, the result is 48 percent to 50 percent, respectively. In other words, not only is a Democratic candidate leading, but Democrats are ahead overall.

Both candidates are familiar figures in Alaska politics. Sullivan, first elected in 2014 when he unseated Democrat Mark Begich, is seeking a third term in a state that has not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 but has elected Democrats statewide before. Peltola won the House seat in a 2022 special election following the death of longtime Rep. Don Young, becoming the first Democrat to hold it in nearly half a century, before losing re-election in 2024.

"This is hardly to say that this means that Peltola will win in November by 2 points, but this is an awfully good indication of how the electorate is looking with the general election very nearly upon us," Stirewalt said. "Good polling, as we have often observed and has been proven quite right of late, is very hard to come by these days. But in a nonpartisan primary, you get a live feed on how persuadable voters are breaking."

According to Stirewalt, "This is the third cycle in which Alaska has had its everyone-in-the-pool primary in effect, and in contested statewide races, most notably the 2022 gubernatorial race, primary results have been strongly predictive of the general. And with Peltola proving herself to be a savvy campaigner with moves like saying thanks, but no thanks to an unsolicited endorsement from former Vice President Kamala Harris, Peltola definitely looks like she's in the driver's seat." In that 2022 governor's race, Republican incumbent Mike Dunleavy finished first in the primary field and went on to win re-election in the fall.

The GOP is projected to suffer major losses in the midterms because of the historic unpopularity of President Donald Trump, with many predicting that the party will lose its majority in the House and possibly even the Senate. Republicans currently hold a narrow Senate majority, which has allowed them to confirm Trump's nominees and advance his agenda largely along party lines. If Stirewalt is right, Republicans have good reason to worry about the latter outcome, which would upend the balance of power in Washington and sharply curtail Trump's agenda.