Background

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich hoped to unseat Senator Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate. This was certainly an uphill battle in Republican Alaska with a number of factors working against the Democrat: a tired donor base and a strong, well-organized Republican base, to name just a couple. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Sarah Palin was named VP on the Republican ticket, prompting Obama to abandon plans for Alaska. This diverted a ton of cash for polling and field work. The Obama modeling exercise for Alaska voters mothballed. But all was not lost--Senator Stevens was preoccupied with an ethics scandal and the nation was tiring of old school Washington politics and the Republican Party in general.

The Begich campaign needed an affordable way to accurately track Alaskans’ Senatorial candidate preference in the weeks leading up to the election.

Our goal was to provide quick, accurate, cost-effective readings on the shifts in support of the Senate race. Over the three weeks of the cycle, we supplied the Begich campaign with survey results from 2,000 randomly generated blind IDs each week. The survey was a simple one; our callers asked a head-to-head candidate choice question assuming the election occurred that day. After deciphering the survey results, we gave it to the Begich campaign to compare with the earlier Obama-generated modeling information.

Each of the three surveys showed shifts but the numbers suggested that the race was winnable---projections were for a photo finish.

In completing our surveys, we validated their original data model from the Obama campaign. Each time we received data, the Begich campaign was able to append our results back to their original clusters to analyze for movement. Based on our results, they could identify areas where support was waxing or waning, allowing them to allocate resources as necessary.

After an arduous vote count, and sixteen days after Election Day, the Associated Press called the election for Begich with just over a 0.5% margin of victory. The next day Senator Stevens conceded the race and Mark Begich became the first Democrat to represent Alaska in either the House or the Senate since 1980. It was an historic moment from Democrats in Alaska and a resounding win for the National Democratic Party.