You can't compare Alaskan cities and towns to the lower 48. It's a whole different world up there. 380,000 is a MAJOR city by Alaskan standards, and that's where you're going to find all of the sh!thead libs.
I posit that you went out of your way to find pink haired, tattooed, latte sipping hippies to quiz about Palin. And just to make it fair, I'm sure you stopped in at the local GOP-e shack to get their take on her.
When she was Governor, Palin had the highest favorability rating of any U.S. Governor. I highly doubt those feelings of high regard simply turned south because of the stupid MSM attacks against her. People don't turn their backs so easily on one of their own -- especially in a place like Alaska.
They turned south as soon as she accepted the VP position.
I think you identified the issue. Alaska is a tough place to live, not like the lower 48 for sure. Beautiful place but rugged. Most comments I got were relative to her quitting and heading to Scottsdale.