The mayor of Eagle, Alaska says he signed a letter of support for Elijah Verhagen without having considered the candidate more fully and because he was misled about who the incumbent, Rep. Dave Talerico, had endorsed.
Mayor Daniel Helmer is retracting that endorsement and is not endorsing in the District 6 race, whose winner will replace retiring Rep. Dave Talerico. Mike Cronk of Tok is the Republican in the race.
“I am not endorsing a candidate in the district 6 election. Besides being Mayor, I am a public employee, and my job prohibits me from endorsing or denouncing candidates for state or national office.
“I signed a letter in support of Verhagen last week without fully knowing what was going on. I have since asked him to remove my name from the letter, and to not use my name in support of his campaign,” Helmer wrote to Must Read Alaska.
“I was led to believe that Elijah was supported by Dave Talerico, and the only reason he was not a Republican, was because he missed the filing deadline to run in the primary,” Helmer explained.
“Signing Elijah’s letter was a mistake on my part. I should have looked into it more closely before agreeing to sign,” he wrote.
The mayor of Anderson has signed a letter endorsing Verhagen, who left the Republican Party and has no political team affiliation. Mayor Samantha Thompson is also a State employee; she is a deputy magistrate II in the court system. Thompson is a liberal who signed the recall petition against Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
