On Tuesday, Alaskans joined Americans in a record-breaking exercise of their right to vote.
While the country is rightfully processing the roar that is President Donald J. Trump’s historic electoral college and popular vote landslide return to the White House, citizens of the 49th state know that governance closer to home has the most direct impact on their daily lives.
The coffee is still taking its effect on the sleep deprived eyes, and data from the Alaska Division of Elections is trickling in and will be hampered as the state waits two weeks for Scott Kendall’s Frankenstein of ranked-choice voting to do its laboratory calculations.
Nevertheless, a lot of moves are being made as this is written to organize the state Legislature in January, and the speed of the commentary won’t be able to keep up with events as they unfold.
Without further ado, here is a preliminary list of winners, losers, and “it’s complicated” from Tuesday night:
WINNERS:
Alaskans won on national issues
The return of the Trump Administration, coupled with a Republican Senate Majority and the chance for the Republicans to hold the House of Representatives for the next Congress, opens the door to huge issues that matter to Alaskans.
Under President Joe Biden, V.P. Kamala Harris, and their environmental lobby-led leadership, Alaska has effectively been locked up, with no new development allowed. ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, cited in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (emphasis added), needed a near miracle to be permitted, despite the hundreds of millions the company spent to get this multi-billion effort sanctioned.
ANWR will likely remain in litigation for some time, but that could receive a friendlier ear before judges thanks to the Supreme Court scrapping the often-abused Chevron Deference, empowering bureaucrats to gaslight lawmakers on the bills they passed and snarl every type of project in endless administrative red tape.
The Ambler Road, which has been sanctioned by Congress and the (checks notes) Jimmy Carter administration over forty years ago, may be free from the shackles Biden’s BLM has placed on it illegally and unfairly.
Alaska’s clout in Congress … mostly
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan must be feeling the vibe today. Being back in the majority saddle will be huge to the Marine, and there is a laundry list of deferred Alaska issues that a Republican Congress and a Trump administration can move through next year.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski might be feeling the burn, as she has suddenly become on the outs with the White House, and possibly with the congressman-elect for Alaska.
Then there is Nick Begich III, possibly congressman-elect.
The grandson of Alaska’s former Democratic Congressman Nick Begich, a nephew to a Democratic former U.S. senator (Mark Begich) and nephew to a former state senator (Tom Begich), NBIII is a Republican entrepreneur who has never held elected office, but who is poised to return Alaska’s lone House seat to the GOP after the hiatus that has been Mary Peltola.
During Peltola’s term, every congressional district that touched the Pacific Ocean was represented in Congress by a Democrat. NBIII is going to change that.
Begich won the old fashioned way, going living room to kitchen to coffee shops in towns and villages throughout Alaska, listening (isn’t that a nice change?) and articulating a modern vision to keep Alaska relevant in the nation and the world, a prerequisite for an effective member of our Congressional delegation.
Despite the name, more associated with Democrats, Begich’s self-made resume contrasted sharply with an anointed special interest scion from Bethel, and the voters recognized that. With his young age, authenticity, and tenacity, there is a long potential public service path for this man.
Decision Desk HQ says Republicans have 92.4% chance of controlling the House, with a possible 223 Republicans to 212 Democrats, which bodes well for Alaska.
Fresh energy in the Alaska Senate
Rep. Mike Cronk of Tok and Rep.-elect Rob Yundt of Wasilla join the ranks of the somewhat ecclesiastical upper chamber of Alaska’s Legislature.
One couldn’t cast two more perfectly genuine men who are emphatically Alaskan.
Cronk, the legendary basketballer, teacher, and hunter from Tok via Northway, ascends to the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Click Bishop.
Yundt, the Mat-Su native son who spars in mixed martial arts rings, coaches kids, builds homes, and serves on the local borough assembly, takes aim with his practical small business sense at Juneau, unseating Sen. David Wilson, the incumbent who joined with Democrats in a coalition.
Alaska’s electoral system
Ballot Measure 2, which repeals the Rube Goldberg rewiring of the state’s election processes, looks like it may pass — barely. The wild card will be the mail-in ballots, which are trending toward “no.”
If the Yes result holds, it is national news, and a stunning repudiation of the state’s burgeoning upper political class who attempted to change this state through experimenting on voters every two years.
Alaskans had the benefit of the 2022 elections to see just how flagrant they were misled by the 2020 initiative that ushered in complicated voting that manipulates the voters.
Called ranked-choice voting for short, the initiative also did away with the primaries that allowed parties to choose their nominees, and it allowed unlimited dark money for ballot initiatives, while restricting such dark money for candidates.
Alaskans, we hope, grew wise to this gimmick, and the obvious reason it was created: to help re-elect Sen. Murkowksi and empower her affiliates in the state, such as her ally, the ever-litigious attorney Scott Kendall.
Expect this result to get litigated, and for Kendall to bill the public for his time in court.
LOSERS:
Alaska small businesses
Voters resoundingly passed ballot measure one, which will raise the state’s minimum wage to $13 an hour next year, eventually rising to $15 an hour.
More pernicious was the blanket requirement for all businesses to provide sick paid leave to employees, regardless of the size of the business.
The last part of the initiative (the real reason the AFL-CIO and all the unions pushed for this) was a ban on businesses effectively holding meetings with their workers when they are considering unionizing. The effect on this collectively will be absorbed by larger, well-capitalized employers.
Expect the hospitality industry in this state, which is overwhelmingly locally owned and operated, to reel pretty heavily. Between Covid lockdowns, inflation on all goods, a labor shortage, and government red tape, the entrepreneur is becoming an endangered species in Alaska.
Conservative leadership in the Legislature
If these results hold in state races, expect the State Senate to remain governed by a predominately Democratic-dominated coalition. The House looks similarly poised with the election of Chuck Kopp in south Anchorage and false flag independent Ky Holland.
If both bodies go “bi,” expect a bevy of bills that have been cooled in the conservative House to be unleashed, including a return to budget busting pensions, taxes, and new operating spending plans for government. The tabulations still have to run, and there is the chance for the course to change. But it will take a big one.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski
If the results nationally hold, Republicans look poised to pick up a 52-53 seat majority. With that margin, Murkowski, who wears her disdain for Trump and much of the state Republican voting base on her sleeve, will be out of the spectrum to be the wannabe power broker of the chamber.
Her political capital has dwindled in many fronts with her Republican colleagues in the Senate, and the return of President Trump does not bode well for facetime in the White House.
Additionally, her endorsement of Democrat Peltola in the congressional race and her opposition to repealing ranked choice voting has not aged well already.
The senior senator looks positioned for an ignominious exit from politics, following in her father’s tradition.
Pollster Ivan Moore
“IT’S COMPLICATED”
Governor Mike Dunleavy
Dunleavy’s guy won the White House, and the rumors will go from whispers to shouts about whether he will be offered a position in the cabinet of the 47th president.
If so, Dunleavy will cap an incredible run, being only the 3rd Republican governor to win two terms in Alaska, and the first governor since 2002 to be returned to the Third Floor in Juneau.
His support of opposing ranked choice voting resets elections back to where they were before 2020, which is a mean feat. And his support for candidates like Jubilee Underwood, if the returns maybe hold, deepens the bench of fresh conservative talent.
However, some of the governor’s key allies in the Legislature, such as Rep. Craig Johnson and Rep. Thomas Baker look like they were unsuccessful in re-election, and Dunleavy-supported candidates like Lucy Bauer are facing an impossible climb on the absentee votes.
The governor is potentially poised, if he is not selected or does not take a position in the Trump administration, to face a unified and hostile Legislature for the last two years of his tenure.
Keep Dunleavy in Alaska two more years. He needs to get in Cathy Giessel’s wrinkled-up face if she becomes senate president.
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Drill, Baby. Deep. Pump that oil outta the ground in huge, paying quantities.
Alaskans, joining a majority of American voters, have chosen Donald Trump by a good margin. The view of Senator Murkowski’s political status that is given in this column is correct; she is no longer of influence for Alaska or for the nation in the U.S. Senate, where before she had perhaps a small but ever-dwindling role in that chamber. The honorable action for Senator Murkowski to take is to resign forthwith from office, so that her replacement can be appointed and sworn in before the Congress convenes on January 3. I am now preparing a letter with this recommendation addressed to Senator Murkowski.
Hopefully the backwoods lawyer Kendall will get his little project back in his lap. I hope the trend continues and we defeat this stupid rank choice voting crap. It should be one person one vote not multiple votes for one person controlled by the system. You would think somebody would have the money and background to take this to court because it sure looks illegal to a lot of us. I also hope package beats the bush candidate. We better hope that the legislature doesn’t come back with taxes this year. We don’t need any new taxation. We need to cut the state budget. Hopefully the selection the numbers will stay like they are and we’ll see what happens after that. The left can cry they want but we won.