The Alaska Center for the Environment, a group of Democrats who work to upend Republican lawmakers, has defined its main target for the 2020 campaign cycle: Republican Rep. Sara Rasmussen, House District 22, South Anchorage.
Rasmussen in 2018 took out no-party incumbent Jason Grenn in a district that Grenn won by posing as a conservative, when he ran against former Rep. Liz Vasquez.
After being elected, Grenn organized with the Democrats.
By 2018, Grenn was done. He only received 41 percent of the vote in his district, which is conservative. He has returned to the nonprofit sector and is now trying to do away with the Alaska Republican Party via ballot initiative (Alaskans for Better Elections), to dismantle the primary ballot in Alaska.
In an “independent expenditure” filing with the Alaska Public Offices Commission this week, Rep. Rasmussen was shown to be the Alaska Center’s prime target, but the group has named three others it wants to take out as well: Reps. Mel Gillis of House District 25, Lance Pruitt of House District 27, and Sarah Vance of House District 31.
Some of the usual suspects show up on the list of deputy treasurers for the campaign against these four Republicans, and the AFL-CIO shows prominently with labor leaders Vince Beltrami, Joey Merrick, Jake Metcalfe, and a man who has called for violence against Republicans, Brandon Fifer.
[Read: Who is Devilsmile and why does he promote violence?]
The kind of tactics that Fifer promotes are a step beyond what the Left took last year, when they published the private home phone number of Rasmussen and sent protesters to her door during evening hours when she was tucking her children into bed, all because of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget.
Now that she’s entering her first re-election cycle, it appears the union bosses are going after her. Why? Rasmussen is young, smart, informed, good-hearted, and hardworking — just the kind of Republican that Democrats want to remove now, rather than wait for her to become all those things, plus experienced.
It’s clear that a Republican like Rasmussen represents a threat to the Democrats, and they’re willing to spend money this cycle to stop her.
