By Shelley Hughes, 2026 Candidate for Governor
Seventeen names, one ballot, and a governor’s seat with no incumbent in the race. If you feel like you are watching a herd rather than an election, you are not wrong. That is the best way I know to describe what is happening in this primary and understanding it is the key to voting well on August 18.
Here is the metaphor: a herd does not have a vision for where it is going. It moves because something spooks it, or because it senses which direction the rest of the herd is already running. Voters in a crowded field behave the same way. Beyond judging who has the best team and the strongest message, most people fall back on one of two things: who they think other people will pick, or who they personally like best. With seventeen candidates, actually getting to know each one takes real effort: reading platforms, showing up to meet-and-greets, asking hard questions. Most people do not have time for that, so early on, the herd tends to drift toward whoever is loudest. Later, as more people actually meet the candidates or dig into their plans, the movement gets more honest. That is what is happening right now with Senator Shelley Hughes and her running mate retired General Blake Gettys. The more people meet them or read what they are actually proposing, the more the herd shifts their direction, because there is a real plan underneath the name.
That shift is exactly why the spooking has started.
If you want to know who is threatened by a candidate, watch who tries to scare voters away from them instead of debating them. I have direct knowledge of two such efforts underway right now. The first is Dave Bronson’s team telling voters that Hughes is running in tenth place, so why “waste” a vote on her. Think about that claim for a second. If Bronson’s campaign genuinely believed Hughes was tenth, they would have no reason to mention her at all. You do not warn people away from a candidate who cannot win. We have recently learned from reliable sources that Hughes-Gettys is third in the Republican field and continues to gain ground each week. The tenth-place line is not information. It is an attempt to talk you out of looking closer.
The second attack is more revealing. A new Hughes supporter recently met a well-connected operator in Democrat politics, someone getting paid well to help run Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign, and mentioned he had just come from a Hughes event and planned to support her. The response was immediate: “She’s part of a cult.” No follow-up, no specifics, no engagement on a single issue. You can visit the Evangelical church in Palmer that Hughes helped found more than twenty years ago and see for yourself that this is not a serious claim. But that was never the point. Calling someone a name like that does two things. First, it signals moral superiority: I’m better than you, and you clearly can’t judge character. Second, and more importantly, it ends the conversation before it starts. Not a word about spending, fish and game, the pipeline, the PFD, or anything resembling an actual governing plan. It is a mic-drop with nothing behind it, and that is the tell. When your best move is name-calling instead of a policy argument, you are conceding the argument.
Now look at what isn’t happening, because it may be the most telling sign of where this race actually stands. The left has more campaign money than it knows what to do with this cycle. In politics, real money does not sit idle. If a candidate worries you, you work to define them before they define themselves. So where are the attacks on Bronson? Where are the attacks on Bernadette Wilson? Silence. Based on what I have seen of past cycles and this field, I read that silence as a decision: the well-funded left is not spending against the candidates it actually wants to face in November.
That should tell you something about who they are afraid of. Someone without skeletons, with real legislative successes and a plan to actually govern. Not empty promises, no soundbites.
The herd does not need to guess where it is going this year. It needs to look up, do the homework these seventeen names require, and vote for the plan rather than the noise. That plan— and the campaign other candidates are working hardest to keep you from examining— points toward Hughes and Gettys.
This op-ed was voluntarily submitted by the Hughes-Gettys campaign and not solicited by Must Read Alaska. All candidates running for elected office are welcome and encouraged to submit articles for publication. Must Read Alaska unequivocally supports the election of a conservative candidate to the Office of Governor but does not endorse a particular candidate.
About Hughes-Gettys
Former State Senator Shelley Hughes, Republican Candidate for Governor is teamed with Lt. Governor Candidate General Blake Gettys (Ret.). Hughes, a 50-year Alaskan, has lived in communities throughout the state, spent 30 years in the private sector, and served in the State House 4 years and 8+ years in the State Senate, including as Senate Majority Leader and Judiciary Chair. General Gettys (Ret.), a 32-year resident, served as the 176th Wing Commander and Director, Joint Staff – AK Joint Force Headquarters, Alaska National Guard, JBER. To see the Hughes/Gettys action plan and solutions, visit www.AlaskansforHughes.com.
