Domenico Montanaro

Right.

With Mary Peltola, who's the Democrat running on fish, family and freedom.

You know, I do.

I think the Cook Political Report classifies it as a lean Republican race.

And, you know, that's notable because a place like Texas, which we spent a lot of time talking about, is at this point a likely Republican outcome still.

I mean, depending on what happens in that runoff and which candidate comes out of that.

You know, but a place like Alaska is just a different kind of place overall.

Candidates really matter.

The rank choice voting system that they have in the state matters, which means that you're going to wind up potentially with less extreme candidates overall.

And this is also somebody who now has some statewide name recognition.

Name ID and money are the two most important things in politics, and neither are going to be lacking in this race because of its priority as one of those states that potentially a Democrat could knock off a Republican.

You know, this is a place that's going to see a lot of outside spending as well.

But if you just think about it from a raw political standpoint.

In 2024, Mary Peltola lost her race by three percentage points.

Donald Trump, that same year, presidential year, where Trump is at the top of the ballot, won by 13 points.

So she already outran Trump by 10 points.

And the headwinds this year are much more in Republicans' face than it is in a year when Trump was able to win the presidential election.

Yeah.

And the people who live in the state don't necessarily go with the current, if we're going to use a fish metaphor, right?

I mean, this is a place where people kind of take pride in going against the grain of going upstream, if you will, and being different than the lower 48.