Why the Trump movement never really took off in red-state Alaska
Alaska is typically Republican turf, with an all-GOP congressional delegation and three electoral votes that haven't gone to a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater in the 1964 landslide.
So what explains Alaskans' apparent weak support for Donald Trump?
A poll released by Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski this month showed her party's presidential nominee at 37 percent, only three points up on Hillary Clinton, and an Alaska Dispatch News survey at the end of September showed Trump at 36 percent, a little less than 6 points ahead of Clinton. In the last presidential election in 2012, Mitt Romney got just under 55 percent of Alaskans' votes.
Both of Alaska's Republican U.S. senators, Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, have withdrawn their support from Trump. And Republicans around the state report few signs of a Trump groundswell — even in Ketchikan, the Southeast city of 8,000 that's seen its pulp mill shuttered and its timber industry battered, making it Alaska's closest parallel to the troubled brick-belt factory towns where Trump has found strong support.
Read more: https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/30/why-the-donald-trump-movement-never-really-took-off-in-red-state-alaska/