On October 16, 1972, Alaska's incumbent Democratic congressman Nick Begich went missing in a plane crash along with House Majority Leader Hale Boggs en route to Juneau from Anchorage.

He then received 37.89 percent of the total statewide vote in the general election, losing the state to Republican John McCain, who had selected then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate.

Begich lost re-election in 2014,[10] the same year that Democratic-endorsed independent Bill Walker defeated incumbent Republican Sean Parnell for Governor.

This was later used as evidence in a high-profile New York Times article detailing the complexity of Alaska politics and the difficulty in predicting the electability of Democrats in the state.

[12] In 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump carried the state by around fifteen percentage points over Hillary Clinton.

No Democrat has carried Alaska in presidential elections since 1964 when Lyndon B. Johnson had his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater.