Why exactly is Parnell even struggling? Has he done anything wrong?
We don't know that he actually is struggling; Alaska polls are basically polls of just Anchorage because there's almost no landline penetration in the rest of the state.
But rural Alaska is afaik leaning Democratic, isn't it?
Basically you've got three groups:
1. Weirdo loners, either survivalists or hippies, but the former outnumber the latter.
2. Oil industry workers; extremely Republican, especially in this race (they don't like the oil severance tax).
3. Natives, who have very idiosyncratic voting patterns and often vote as a bloc; they usually have a strong pro-incumbent bias but not always.
In general it combines to be more Republican than the rest of the state, except when natives vote as a bloc for the Democrat.
The Native vote is why I think Begich still has an even or better chance of winning, and why Young is absolutely safe no matter what scandalous insane thing he does or says.
