Three Competitive Senate Races: Alabama, Alaska, and Maine

Among the most competitive U.S. Senate races this year we have Alabama, Alaska, and Maine. That may seem strange, given that these states are very solid on the presidential level. Two in three of these states have Republican incumbents: Dan Sullivan from Alaska and Susan Collins from Maine, while Alabama, a deep-red Bible Belt state, has an incumbent Democrat, Doug Jones, and all of them are super competitive. Let’s find out why in this post.

We’ll start off with Alabama, the Yellowhammer State, which, as mentioned, has an incumbent Democrat. The story of how Democrat Doug Jones got elected is an interesting one. In 2017, when Republican Jeff Sessions resigned from his Senate seat, the governor appointed Republican Luther Strange to act as senator until the special election that December. However, despite Strange having the full support from the White House and Mitch McConnell, and despite outspending the other Republican, Roy Moore, by a factor of 10 to one in the seat’s primary election, Moore came out victorious in the primary runoff in September.

Unfortunately for Moore, in mid-November, a number of woman alleged that Moore had made sexual advances or assaults on them while they were just teenagers, which attracted lots of media attention. Because it was too late to remove his name from the ballot, Donald Trump and state Republicans affirmed their support, even though some other national Republicans didn’t. A write-in campaign was launched, but that didn’t go anywhere in the end.

Ultimately, Doug Jones was able to edge out a narrow victory over Moore, winning by 21,924 votes, or 1.63 percent. Despite Moore’s efforts to delegitimize the election result and his refusal to concede, ultimately, Jones was sworn into office on January 3, 2018, becoming the first Democrat to win a federal statewide election to win in Alabama since 1992.

This year, though, Doug Jones does not have the benefit of running against an alleged child molester. Instead, he is running against Republican Tommy Tuberville, a former football head coach, who also has the endorsement of the White House and other Republicans. Due to Alabama’s huge conservative lean, Jones is considered the most vulnerable Democrat seeking reelection this season. Unfortunately for him, polling has been good for Tuberville in the state—many polls have shown him leading by double-digits. In addition, FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe Senate forecast is giving Tuberville a 78 percent chance of victory, while the Lite forecast gives Tuberville a 91 percent chance. Other pundit forecasters rate this race as lean or likely Republican. Newshacker Blog‘s mid-October projection predicts the race for Tuberville.

In order for Doug Jones to win, he will need to massively ramp up Black turnout in the Black Belt region (from Sumter to Russell counties, including Montgomery), as well as persuade some Republicans to split their ballots and vote for him. In addition, he will need high turnout in the Democratic Jefferson County, which contains the city of Birmingham (the state’s capital and largest city).

Moving on, we have the state of Alaska. The Last Frontier is pretty interesting in that urban Alaska is more Republican than rural Alaska, thanks in part due to a large American Indian population in rural Alaska.

In fact, the state’s most Republican areas include Anchorage City-Borough, the Kenai Peninsula Borough, and Fairbanks North Star borough. Alaska leans Republican due to its large oil industry. The Alaskan Bush (areas in Alaska not connected to the road network, especially in the north) and Juneau are Democratic strongholds.

Though both of Alaska’s senators are Republican, there is a huge difference between the two. Senator Lisa Murkowski, the state’s senior senator, is one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate—she is pro-choice, against repealing the Affordable Care Act, in support of LGBTQ rights, and is against the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. In 2010, she won on a write-in campaign after failing to get the state’s GOP nomination, a story worth telling on its own. However, she isn’t up for election this year.

However, she isn’t up for election this year. Alaska’s other Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, is. Unlike Murkowski and Alaska’s at-large representative Don Young who often breaks with the GOP, Sullivan is a reliable GOP party-line vote. He is socially and fiscally conservative, which may hurt him in Alaska since Alaska is one of the more libertarian-leaning states in the country. He won in the red wave year of 2014. He is facing neurosurgeon Al Gross, an independent who has the backing of the Democratic Party. Gross has fundraised well and polls show a close race. The race is well within single digits, and FiveThirtyEight gives Sullivan a 78 percent chance of winning only in this state. That is similar to Donald Trump’s chances of winning here—Trump only has an 80 percent chance in Alaska, a state that has voted Republican all but once (1964) since becoming a state. In addition, Alaska is notorious for being a very difficult state to poll, so take the results with a grain of salt.

Most pundit forecasters, including The Cook Political Report, The Economist, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Inside Elections, Politico, and FiveThirtyEight are only rating this race as lean Republican.

Because Alaskans tend to vote for candidates that prioritize state over party, Sullivan is in grave danger of losing. In addition, with him only winning by 6,000 votes in 2014, and Al Gross raking in $9.1 million in the last quarter—the record for an Alaska candidate—the possibility of Sullivan losing to Gross doesn’t seem too far-fetched.

Finally, we will discuss the state of Maine. The Pine Tree State is traditionally a Democratic state—it has voted for a Democratic president reliably since 1992 (except in 2016 where the second district voted for Donald Trump, breaking with the rest of the state). However, it has had an incumbent Republican senator, Susan Collins, since 1997.

Collins was widely considered to be the most liberal Republican U.S. Senator and she had been deeply popular in Maine, winning each election to her seat by a greater margin than the last. However, her image of being the most bipartisan senator completely collapsed with Donald Trump as president. She was heavily criticized for voting to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She was criticized for voting to acquit Trump of all impeachment charges earlier this year, and for a multitude of other issues. This has caused her to fall from becoming the most popular senator to the least popular senator in the entire country.

She will now be facing the most competitive election of her political career. Her opponent, Sara Gideon, is the current speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, a well-known and liked figure in the state. Virtually every single poll has shown Gideon leading (and by relatively margins at that too), and FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe model gives Gideon a 63 percent chance of winning. That jumps to 77 percent on the Lite model.

Pundit forecasters such as Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Inside Elections, The Economist, Niskanen Center, and FiveThirtyEight are predicting the race for Gideon, while The Cook Political Report still rates the race as a tossup.

It seems like Gideon is on track to ousting a longtime Republican incumbent in the blue state of Maine. This seat is an important pickup to ensure the Democrats win a majority in the Senate.

In conclusion, these three states were all expected to be safe Republican holds not too long ago, and Jones was widely expected to lose by a huge margin. However, it seems like that may no longer be the case anymore, as all of these seats are on the Democrats’ radar as possible pickup (or retain) opportunities.

If you live in one of these states (or any other state for that matter), you should vote. Though in-person early voting has ended or is about to end in many states, you can still vote in-person on Election Day. Find out more about voting here.

Make sure to check out our other swing state analyses too: we have covered Arizona, Montana, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Maine and Nebraska’s second districts, and Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia. Michigan and Wisconsin will be the final two states to be covered.

Check out our 2020 election coverage page for more on the election.