Our Philosophy

Polls get a bad rap sometimes.  But when they’re done right, they can get very close to reflecting exactly what Alaskans think. 

ASR does all our surveys online –  finally, no more interviewer bias and error!

We do huge sample sizes, rarely under 1,000 total responses.

And we have refined our data weighting procedures to bring our samples in line with the Alaska population on key demographics like age, gender, race, education level, Alaska region, and political indicators like party affiliation, political ideology and 2024 vote for President.  We do a huge amount of work behind the scenes to make our numbers as accurate as possible.

The Survey

Alaska Survey Research was contracted by the Anchorage School District in early February to conduct a survey of Anchorage voters to assess the chances of the two ASD-related propositions passing. These were Prop 1 – $79 million School Bonds and Prop 9 – $12 million tax levy for teacher retention.

We recommended asking not only about these two school related items, but about ALL the other big-ticket propositions on the ballot as well – they essentially compete for voter priority, so we felt that replicating the whole ballot would provide the best results.

Methodology

The survey was conducted between February 7-10, 2026. It was conducted online using ASR’s Survey Panel, which comprises thousands of survey respondents who have completed ASR surveys in the past.

We feel strongly that it is damaging to the integrity of the ASR Panel to use “non probability” methods to recruit panelists, for example by recruiting from visitors to our website, or by using online ads. We don’t do it. All ASR Survey Panel respondents are sourced via recruitment from randomized ASR surveys.

Respondents were selected from the ASR Panel using a probability-based selection method. This method increases the probability of selection of hard-to-get demos, like young people 18-34 for example, and decreases the probability of selection of the easy- to-get ones, like college graduates. It’s designed to ultimately yield a raw data file that is balanced demographically and thus requires as little statistical weighting as possible.

Sample size

A total sample of 1,052 Anchorage adults aged 18+ completed the survey. Of these, 1,017 were registered to vote. Results were subject to a margin of error of between +3.0% and +3.5% at 95% confidence.

Data weighting

Data was weighted to match population proportions for the Municipality of Anchorage for Anchorage inter-city region, age, gender, race, education level, party affiliation, political ideology and 2024 vote for Anchorage Mayor (Bronson-LaFrance runoff).  Once weighted to population, election results were overlaid with an additional weight that took into account the respondents’ stated likelihood of voting.

The Results!

ASR tested eight of the largest dollar-amount propositions on the ballot.  As we have said already, we were primarily interested in the ASD results – Proposition 1 ($79 million school bond) and Proposition 9 ($12 million tax levy), but felt it was important to ask all the props to get the most accurate read on the likely results.

Here are the results we measured in the survey, compared to the official election results as certified by the Assembly on April 28, 2026.  Let’s start off by averaging all eight to see how close we got to reflecting the overall yes-no will of the voters.

All 8 Proposition Average

Survey: 54.6% yes, 45.4% no

Election: 55.1% yes, 44.9% no

Average change: +0.5%

Just half a point low.  We were thrilled with this result, because it indicates that we weren’t high or low overall in a systematic error kind of way.  Pretty much hit the bullseye.

Now to the individual prop results:

Proposition 1 – $79 million school bond

Survey says NO: 46.2% yes, 53.8% no

Election says NO: 49.6% yes, 50.4% no

Change: +3.4%

Prop 1 ended up doing better than the survey suggested, but this perhaps isn’t surprising with groups like School Bonds Yes and Great Alaska Schools pushing for a yes vote prior to the election.

Proposition 2 – $38 million roads & drainage bond

Survey says YES: 58.9% yes, 41.1% no

Election says YES: 60.9% yes, 39.1% no

Change: +2.0%

Proposition 3 – $6 million parks bond

Survey says YES: 52.9% yes, 47.1% no

Election says YES: 55.7% yes, 44.3% no

Change: +2.8%

Prop 3 also did better than the survey suggested – the Anchorage Park Foundation pushes for a yes vote in pre-election advertising, so positive movement was expected.

Proposition 5 – $7 million community facilities bond

Survey says YES: 54.7% yes, 45.3% no

Election says YES: 53.5% yes, 46.5% no

Change: -1.2%

Proposition 6 – $9 million public safety bond

Survey says YES: 58.7% yes, 41.3% no

Election says YES: 56.1% yes, 43.9% no

Change: -2.6%

Proposition 7 – $2.5 million fire protection bond

Survey says YES: 66.1% yes, 33.9% no

Election says YES: 64.3% yes, 35.7% no

Change: -1.8%

Proposition 8 – $1.7 million Chugach State Park bond

Survey says TIE: 50.0% yes, 50.0% no

Election says YES: 50.9% yes, 49.1% no

Change: +0.9%

Proposition 9 – $12 million ASD Tax Levy bond

Survey says NO: 49.0% yes, 51.0% no

Election says NO: 49.7% yes, 50.3% no

Change: +0.7%

We were very pleased with how close Proposition 9 came to the election results.  Unfortunately for ASD, neither Prop 1 or Prop 9 quite made it over the 50% threshold for passing.

NOTES:

• Certified result percentages were calculated among those who voted on each proposition.

• This survey was conducted two months prior to the election, so is subject to voter opinions changing in the time between the survey and the election. But, unlike Assembly races where candidates campaign and run ads, propositions are fairly static and most of them don’t have active campaigns promoting a yes or no vote.

• Thanks to the Anchorage School District for having confidence in our work, and allowing us to reproduce the results here.