Given the lack of a high-profile Democrat, the ranked choice voting process seems likely to set up a contest between the two leading Republicans. And in early July, Alaska Survey Research released a poll that looked at how a hypothetical general election could play out if it involved Murkowski, Tshibaka, Chesbro and Dustin Darden, a candidate of the Alaskan Independence Party. As the table below shows, Tshibaka led in rounds one and two, but once the ranked choice votes were reallocated in the third and final round, Murkowski won by 4 percentage points, although that gap was inside the margin of error.

But how support shifted under ranked choice voting lays out a path that Murkowski likely has to follow to win. Initially, Murkowski attracted 43 percent of registered Democrats, who made up 17 percent of voters in the ASR poll, and 44 percent among the 52 percent of the sample who weren’t affiliated with either major party. But she won only 17 percent among registered Republicans, who made up 31 percent of voters, while Tshibaka won nearly all remaining GOP support. Things didn’t shift much in the second round after dropping the last-place candidate, Darden, and reallocating his votes. Then, after dropping Chesbro for the third round, Murkowski jumped ahead by gaining almost all the outstanding support of Democrats — about 97 percent of them — and 60 percent of independents. This was just enough to outdistance Tshibaka, who ended up with slightly over 80 percent of Republican voters and 40 percent of independents.

For both Murkowski and Tshibaka, this poll offered hope and a warning. Murkowski clearly has a path to victory and FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecast currently gives her an 85 in 100 shot at winning.1 But given the overall margin, the survey suggests she can’t afford to lose much more Republican support if she wants to come out on top.