Thread by @Nate_Cohn

Here's something I didn't realize: Alyse Galvin (IND, but Dem nominee) has led Don Young (R) in all three polls of AK-AL this cycle. Mainly Dem/progressive sponsored surveys, but still interesting
projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/house/al…

OTOH, it's interesting that the one pure nonpartisan poll here also showed Gavin up in the days ahead of the 2018 election, and Young did quite well among the state's Alaska Native population--which is generally believed to be a particularly tough group to reach in surveys

If the group is so hard to reach that you can't even weight them up, and you end up clumping it in with the more reliably Democratic 'other nonwhite' category, then you can wind up in a spot where you're pretty good in, say, the presidential race but maybe underestimate Young

In fact, eye-balling the results by district, it looks like Gavin might have outdone Begich in Anchorage. If so, then it really does makes sense that you could have Gavin leading the ticket in the poll, but behind other Dems on Election Day, if you don't get Alaska Natives

This year, I don't know whether to expect Sullivan to have any special strength among Alaska Natives. But it is interesting that most polls again seem to have Young running behind Sullivan.

Well, depends on how the poll is constructed, but I'd guess not. If you don't have many Alaska natives, I'd guess you'd weight on white v. nonwhite. If we assume 'other' nonwhite = D, then the poll would mainly only be biased when GOP wins AK Native vote

https://twitter.com/MichiganKiran/status/1314962877497913344?s=20

Now, it could work out the other way if the pollster doesn't collapse all nonwhite voters, and their sample of AK Natives winds up being too GOP. Then you're upweighting an unrepresentative set of GOP-leaners. I'd guess that's less likely, but IDK. Not much transparency

What I'll say, though, is that the former scenario--where pollster collapses white/nonwhite--does help explain how you wind up having Young well behind Sullivan, stipulating that Young is still doing well w AK natives like '18