Alaska, Alaska, Alaska

It’s unlikely, but the Last Frontier could be Harris’s last stand

It’s midday on Nov. 7, two days after the election. And although the networks haven’t called the race yet, things are looking pretty Trumpy.

Trump, you see, has been declared the winner in Pennsylvania (Kamala Harris should’ve picked Shapiro.) He’s also flipped Georgia back into the GOP column and held onto North Carolina by roughly a percentage point. And although Harris has won Michigan and Wisconsin, and it looks like she’ll pull out Nevada and probably Arizona — which take some time to count their votes due to the preponderance of mail ballots — her math just doesn’t add up. Even with both those states in hand, she’d tally 268 electoral votes, one shy of the number needed for a tie (which would probably be resolved for Trump in the U.S. House) and two short of the threshold for a win outright. At Polymarket, Harris is a 30:1 underdog.

Game over, right?

Well, not so fast. On NBC, Steve Kornacki holds up a whiteboard, echoing the late, great Tim Russert. On it are written three words: “Alaska, Alaska, Alaska”. The Last Frontier hasn’t finished counting its votes either, but early returns are surprisingly positive for Harris, a state that Democrats have won just once in the state’s history, in 1964. With Arizona and Nevada and Alaska, Harris would win the Electoral College — just barely.

Is this some sort of progressive election nerd wet dream? Yeah, probably. But our election model’s job is to think through every plausible scenario. And it thinks this contingency is possible, albeit unlikely.