The Alaska Democratic Party is red-faced over having lost in Alaska Superior Court and then at the Alaska Supreme Court.
The Democrats are anguished there is a second Democrat running for Congress due to a situation created by the open primary system they defend.
It’s the “play stupid games and win stupid prizes” scenario they made, and they are now embarrassed and angry at the result. It’s someone else’s fault, they say. It’s Nick Begich’s fault.
Alaska’s hardline Democrats will now be able to choose between Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola and Democrat Eric Hafner, who is in federal prison. Voters may also choose Republican Nick Begich or Alaskan Independence Party John Waye Howe. All four will be on the congressional section of the Nov. 5 ballot.
The Democrats sued to get Hafner off the ballot. As an Antifa-style Democrat, he presents a real threat to Peltola, even though he is serving time in prison. Hafner pulls votes from Peltola’s left, and in ranked-choice voting, some Democrats may pick Hafner first to send a message.
Alaska Democrats say on their t-shirts and hoodies that they’re “NOT like Lower 48 Dems.” Indeed, Alaska Democrats are more in the Sen. Bernie Sanders camp, with a socialistic flair. In 2016, they voted for Bernie Sanders for president over Hillary Clinton. They tend to go further to the left than most Democrats in America.
Hafner may appeal to the Alaska Democrat base, as he is more of a Bernie Sanders type. What’s more, Hafner has a platform that calls for Native sovereignty and return of all land to indigenous people; it’s a platform that helped him do well in Hawaii, when he ran for office there. Peltola, on the other hand, is so timid that she won’t even endorse Kamala Harris for president, and she doesn’t show up for work.
The Democratic Party say this is all Nick Begich’s doing that their Antifa Democrat is on the ballot. In a news press release, the Democrats call Begich a long shot who has a “snowball’s chance in hell of winning.”
Then, the Democrats accuse Begich of using dirty tricks, as if he was the one who had signed up Hafner. In fact, Hafner has run in other states — it’s kind of a hobby of his to run for Congress. He ran in Oregon as a Democrat in 2018. In Hawaii, he got 44% of the vote in the primary in 2016.
But evidently Begich is not such a long shot, because the Democrats are spilling a lot of ink being mad at him. They are not attacking their second Democrat candidate who filed for office against the incumbent. It’s all Nick Begich’s fault, they say in their news release that foreshadows what their message is going to be from here until Nov. 5.
“The Alaska Democratic Party is disappointed with the Alaska Supreme Court ruling that a convicted felon who is incarcerated in New York until 2036 will remain on the ballot as a candidate for Congress despite the fact that he cannot possibly be an inhabitant of Alaska when elected or serve out a term in Washington D.C.,” the Democrats wrote, before unleashing their full fury on “longshot” Nick Begich by calling him a “loser.”
“Eric Hafner. a non-Alaskan in prison in New York for making bomb threats against elected officials, was certified by the Division of Elections on September 2nd after finishing sixth in the August primary with less than 0.5% of the votes cast. The certification came on the heels of fifth-place finisher Republican Matthew Salisbury withdrawing from the race at the last possible moment after an orchestrated effort by two—time loser Republican candidate Nick Begich.”
Polling shows Peltola and Nick Begich are now tied, 45-45. The Democrats have their own polling that shows them the same thing, which is why they are turning their venom on him.
“Begich came in a distant second to U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in the August primary and clearly knows he has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.” said Executive Director Lindsay Kavanaugh, expressing the party’s deepening anxiety. “His dirty tactics don’t change the fact he’s a longshot.”
In fact, it was the Alaska Republican Party, not Nick Begich, that filed a brief to intervene in the case as an interested party. But it was the State of Alaska’s Division of Elections that was the defendant.
“Unsurprisingly, the Alaska Republican Party publicly supports the decision that a convicted felon who is running his campaign from a prison cell in New York should appear on Alaska’s ballot as a candidate for federal office.” said Mike Wenstrup, chairman of the party that has 73,000 registered voters in Alaska. “This ruling sets a dangerous precedent and is embarrassing for our state.”
Embarrassing to the state? The open primary and ranked-choice general election is proving to be that. But it’s mostly embarrassing for the Democrats, whose logic is that all that political parties need to do is have opponents arrested, and get them convicted by partisan juries to disqualify them from running for office.
It’s a playbook they have already used to injure presidential candidate Donald Trump. The fact that a Manhattan jury convicted Trump for 34 felonies for improper business documentation did not prevent Trump from continuing on as a candidate for president. The Constitution does not prohibit felons from running for office.
But the Democrats didn’t consider Hafner a real threat in June. In fact, the Democrats, through Democrat operative Jim Lottsfeldt, were spending tens of thousands of dollars on ads to get Republican Gerald Heikes more votes in the primary so he would appear on the November ballot and take votes from Nick Begich. They ignored the peril that Hafner posed to them if he moved into contention, so they never challenged his candidacy until the primary election was certified on Sept. 1.
The Alaska Supreme Court is known as a liberal body, due to the way judges are picked in the 49th state; the Alaska Bar Association has an oversized role in the process, and the lawyers who make up the bar are largely Democrat.
But even the Alaska Supreme Court did not think the Democrats had a case in their efforts to disenfranchise Hafner.
Democrats are in the “finding out” part of the “F— around and find out” scenario they created.
Notably, the Alaska Democratic Party did not publish its ‘loser, longshot, dirty tactics” statement on its own website, but rather just on social media. On the party’s own website, it fully supports the open primary system that put their own felon on the ballot.
“Ranked Choice Voting is easier than you think (and the Republicans would like you to believe),” the Democrats state on their website.
So easy, even a felon can game it from prison.