Barrow’s Rep. Ben Nageak is behind challenger Dean Westlake, with just five votes separating them. Westlake has 765 votes to Nageak’s 760.
We’re not ready to call this race, but if there was ever an example of how every vote counts, this is it.
Our understanding from the field is there are three villages that have not been counted and there is a looming question about many questioned ballots. Reports have come in to Must Read Alaska that in District 40, election workers made voters who requested a Democratic ballot vote a questioned ballot if they were registered as Republicans; the questioned ballots could make a difference for Rep. Nageak.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN PICKS A STREET FIGHTER FOR CEO
Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, is the new CEO for the Donald Trump campaign, while Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster for Trump, is the campaign manager.
Bannon wrote and directed a documentary on Sarah Palin called The Undefeated. Conway is president and CEO of The Polling Company / WomanTrend, and is a commentator on CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, Good Morning America, and Meet the Press.
OIL PATCH SHUFFLE
ASRC Energy Services CEO Jeff Kinneeveauk has resigned effective this Thursday. Doug Smith will become the new president and CEO. Smith is president and CEO of Little Red Services and ASRC Construction Holding Co. Kinneeveauk, born in Point Hope, became CEO in 2011.
SHIP OF FOOLS?
The Celebrity Serenity left Seward and is motoring west and north with 1,000 passengers and 600 crew members to cross over the Northwest Passage. The trip cost passengers between $21,000 and $120,000, depending on your stateroom and amenities, and is billed as the adventure of a lifetime as the itinerary stops in 14 places before reaching New York City….
…Or as Slate magazine puts it: “It is also an abomination—a massive, diesel-burning, waste-dumping, ice-destroying, golf-ball-smacking middle finger to what remains of the planet, courtesy of precisely 1,089 of its richest and most destructive inhabitants. And it’s all made possible by runaway climate change, the existential global crisis that these same people and their ilk have disproportionately helped to create.”
Kill joy.
The Celebrity Serenity will arrive in Nome on Aug. 21, and will be the largest ship of its kind to ever stop there, and just in time for the Nome Berry Festival.
MARGARET STOCK GOES UNION
There was a big fundraiser at the IBEW building tonight and it was for self-described nonpartisan candidate Margaret Stock, running for U.S. Senate. We missed getting the invite, but it looked like a union made in heaven.
RACE FOR SITKA MAYOR
Then there were three: Former Sitka city administrator Gary Paxton, has withdrawn from the race for mayor of Sitka, which leaves Deputy Mayor Matthew Hunter, Assembly member Ben Miyasato, and local civic leader Mary Magnuson vying for the job.
Magnuson is ready for the heat of politics because last year she got into politically incorrect trouble as she defended the honor of the Alaska Day charity “slave” auction, whereby you can bid on two hours of household chores from willing volunteers.
The 30-year-old traditional event ran into the buzzsaw of the Anchorage chapter of NAACP, which called it “inflammatory and insensitive” and ordered a name change. Politically thin-skinned Sitkans (can we still say that?) complied.
In an interview with the Alaska Dispatch last year, Magnuson said the slave auction had raised $3,000 for the local fire department, and those who wanted the name changed were just blowing it up. “There were no shackles, no oppression, just raising money for the first responders we all love. I’m offended that this political correctness is trying to be pushed on us and making us look like jerks.”
This year and forever more it will be known as the “Alaska Day Auction,” but locals will probably cluck at being bullied by Anchorage pc police. What is the world coming to? They already had to ditch the wet T-shirt contest.
The Municipal Election will be held on Oct 4. No big controversies are planned.
Alaska Day in Sitka is October 10-18, with the Alaska Day Ball on Oct. 17. The people of Sitka will endeavor to not offend non-Sitkans by having any non-politically correct fun.