When the dust finally settled on the 2020 election, people were looking at the Lower 48 for weeks. But way up north, things were taking their own sweet time. If you’re asking did Trump win Alaska in 2020, the short answer is yes. He definitely did.
But "yes" doesn't really tell the whole story of how it went down.
Alaska is huge. It's rugged. And its election count is notoriously slow. While the rest of the country was arguing over Pennsylvania and Georgia, Alaska was sitting there with a massive pile of uncounted mail-in ballots. It took until November 11—over a week after Election Day—for the major news outlets to officially call it.
The Final Numbers in the Last Frontier
Trump didn't just squeak by. He won the state by a double-digit margin. According to the official certified results from the Alaska Division of Elections, Donald Trump pulled in 189,951 votes. That landed him at 52.8% of the total vote share.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, grabbed 153,778 votes, which gave him 42.8%.
It’s about a 10-point gap. Ten points sounds like a blowout in a swing state like Arizona, but in Alaska, it was actually the closest race the state had seen since 1992. Historically, Republicans usually sail through Alaska with massive leads. Biden actually performed better than any Democrat has in decades—the highest percentage for a blue candidate since LBJ in '64.
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The Breakdown of the Rest
It wasn't just a two-man race. Alaskans love their independent streaks.
- Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian): 8,897 votes (2.5%)
- Jesse Ventura (Green Party): 2,673 votes (0.7%)
- Don Blankenship (Constitution Party): 1,127 votes (0.3%)
- Brock Pierce (Independent): 825 votes (0.2%)
Honestly, these third-party numbers are pretty standard for the state. People in Alaska aren't always big on the two-party system.
Why it Took So Long to Call
You might remember the "red mirage" or "blue shift" talk. In Alaska, it was more like a slow thaw.
The state doesn't start counting its absentee ballots until way after the polls close. In 2020, they didn't even touch the mail-in stuff until November 10. Because of the pandemic, a ton of people voted by mail. Trump had a massive lead on election night because Republicans tended to vote in person more, but as the mail-ins were opened, Biden started chipping away at that lead.
He didn't chip away enough to win, obviously. But he did make it interesting for a minute.
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The geography makes things tough too. We’re talking about ballots coming in by bush plane from villages that aren't even on a road system. It's not like counting votes in a suburban precinct in Ohio. When you ask did Trump win Alaska in 2020, you have to respect the logistics involved in getting that answer.
Did Trump Win Alaska in 2020 Everywhere?
Not exactly. Alaska is often painted as a solid red block, but that's not the reality on the ground.
Biden actually flipped Anchorage. That was a big deal. Winning the state’s largest city is a feat for a Democrat. He also carried the Juneau area (no surprise there, it's the capital and tends to be more liberal) and a lot of the rural areas in the North Slope and the western coast, where Alaska Native communities have a lot of influence.
Trump’s strength was in the Mat-Su Valley—basically the "Red Heart" of Alaska—and the Kenai Peninsula. These areas came out in droves for him. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough alone provides a massive buffer for any Republican candidate.
Misconceptions About the 2020 Result
People often think Alaska is a "safe" state. While it stayed red, the 2020 results showed some cracks in the GOP armor. The 10-point margin was a significant drop from the 15-point margin Trump had back in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.
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Some folks also get confused about the ranked-choice voting. Here is a key fact: Ranked-choice voting was NOT used for the 2020 Presidential election. Alaskans actually voted on the initiative to start using ranked-choice voting (Measure 2) on the same ballot where they chose the President. Measure 2 passed by a hair, but it didn't go into effect until the 2022 midterms. So, the 2020 presidential race was a standard "highest-vote-wins" situation.
Looking Forward
If you're tracking these trends, keep an eye on the urban-rural divide. The fact that Anchorage went blue suggests the state is shifting, even if it's doing it at a glacier's pace.
For anyone researching or writing about this, your best move is to dig into the Alaska Division of Elections official reports. They have the precinct-level data that shows exactly where the shift happened. Don't just look at the 3 electoral votes; look at how the Mat-Su vs. Anchorage dynamic is changing the state's political DNA.
To get the most accurate picture of how Alaska's political landscape is changing, you should compare the 2020 house district results with the 2022 and 2024 outcomes to see if the "blue-ing" of Anchorage is a permanent trend or a one-time thing.