The 2016 Alaska Democratic presidential caucuses were held on March 26 in the U.S. state of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

as one of the Democratic Party's primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election. On the same day, Democratic caucuses were held in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

and in the state of Washington. The Republican Party did not hold any primaries that day; their own Alaska caucuses took place on March 1, 2016.

Opinion polling

Results

Analysis

Alaska gave Sanders his largest win outside of his home state of Vermont. He won 80% of the vote and 82% of the state convention delegates, and carried every borough and census area in the state by landslide margins. He swept Democratic strongholds - including sparsely populated areas in the Bush - as well as GOP strongholds such as Fairbanks and surrounding

Interior Alaska Interior Alaska is the central region of Alaska's territory, roughly bounded by the Alaska Range to the south and the Brooks Range to the north. It is largely wilderness. Mountains include Denali in the Alaska Range, the Wrangell Mountains, and ...

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

on the

Kenai Peninsula The Kenai Peninsula ( Dena'ina: ''Yaghenen'') is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of Southcentral Alaska. The name Kenai (, ) is derived from the word "Kenaitze" or "Kenaitze Indian Tribe", the name of the Native Athabascan Alaskan tribe ...

, and

Juneau Juneau ( ; ), officially the City and Borough of Juneau, is the capital of the U.S. state of Alaska, located along the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of wha ...

in the

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, Radius, radially arrayed compass directions (or Azimuth#In navigation, azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, ...

. A Sanders win in Alaska was expected, since he generally performed well in

caucus A caucus is a group or meeting of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures. The term originated in the United States, where it can refer to ...

states, in majority white electorates, and in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

. Also, Clinton had lost the state eight years before to

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

, and she did not campaign personally in the state (Sanders did not either, but he sent his wife Jane to campaign for him in

). At a rally in

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

on March 26, Sanders told supporters “We knew from day one that politically we were going to have a hard time in the Deep South, but we knew things were going to improve when we headed west.”

References

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

Democratic primary

March 2016 in the United States {{Alaska-election-stub