For an explanation about why I made this episode, I recently wrote about it on my blog: About Those Presidential Election Results.
Wrangell Precinct Votes. Wrangell has voted in 16 presidential races since Alaska became a state. This interactive image carousel shows a slide for each presidential race from 1960 to 2020. This shows the number of votes for president in Wrangell’s precinct, and does not include absentee votes. Use the arrows on the left/ride sides to navigate, or touch the thumbnail-sized images below.
Comparing Alaska & Wrangell: Votes by Party. The chart below compares the percent of the vote for each party’s presidential candidate in Wrangell precinct (lines) versus Alaska (filled in shape). As you can see, Wrangell’s precinct has voted with Alaska for president 100% of the time since statehood. Since the 1980s, the Wrangell precinct vote for president has become more Republican, and less Democrat, than the rest of Alaska.
Wrangell Precinct Voter Turnout. This chart shows the number of registered voters (solid white line on top) against the total number of votes cast for president inside Wrangell’s precinct (dashed white line). It appears that the percent of voter turnout is declining, but that’s not the whole story…
Wrangell With District. In 2020, Wrangell’s district included Ketchikan, North Tongass, Saxman, South Tongass, Hydaburg, and Metlakatla. All the absentee ballots from these communities were totaled and reported as as single line item for the district. While no community’s precinct had above 50% voter turnout, the district as a whole earned 61.07%. This suggests absentee voting accounts for a large share of the votes in the district.
Wrangell with District: Absentee Votes for President. Absentee voting is rising in the district Wrangell shares with other communities. For decades, absentee voting for president in Wrangell’s district never passed 20%. For the past four elections, it’s been well above 20%. In 2020, 4 in 10 votes cast for president in Wrangell’s district were absentee.
Wrangell with District: Absentee Votes for President by Party. Democrats running for president tend to perform better among absentee voters in Wrangell’s district than they do among voters in Wrangell’s precinct.
Wrangell’s Precinct: Party Registration vs. Party Votes. When citizens register to vote, they’re allowed to declare a political party affiliation, or they may declare their party affiliation as nonpartisan or undeclared. This chart shows registered voters in Wrangell by party (dashed line), along with how each party performed in Wrangell’s precinct in the presidential race (solid line).
