For the good of Alaska, Nancy Dahlstrom should drop her bid for Congress, said one commenter on Dahlstrom’s campaign page on Facebook, adding “Alaskans need to stand together.”
After Dahlstrom posted a note on Facebook saying she was going to go forward to the November ballot, 86 people commented. All of those comments advised her, in no uncertain terms, to get out. There was just one commenter who told her to stay in the race, and that comment attracted disagreement and laughter emojis.
While paid political consultants in Washington, D.C. are convincing her to stay in, as they feed from the trough of campaigns, the feedback Dahlstrom is getting from Alaskans is uniform. In a poll in the Must Read Alaska newsletter, respondents overwhelmingly said she should drop: The poll went 95% against her.
After being in the race for nine months, she only has 350 followers on Facebook, but they are not being supportive of her current plan to stay in the race, where Nick Begich came in 23 points behind Rep. Mary Peltola, but where Dahlstrom is 30 points behind.
These are typical of the comments Dahlstrom is getting on her Facebook page, which we expect will be removed from her page soon:
The Must Read Alaska newsletter,which reaches 33,000 Alaskans three times a week, is known for pithy news, insights, and the Question of the Week, which is a nonscientific reading of the opinions of the mainly conservative readership.
This week, the opinions were nearly unanimous: 95% of participants in the three-day poll said that any Republican coming in after the first-place Republican in the congressional race should drop.
That means readers participating in the survey overwhelmingly agree that Nancy Dahlstrom, Matthew Salisbury, and Gerald Heikes should clear the decks so that leading candidate Nick Begich can go head-to-head with Rep. Mary Peltola in November, and so Republicans’ energies, funds, and enthusiasm is not diluted between various also-ran candidates.
Nick Begich, who got 6,000 more votes than Nancy Dahlstrom, learned the lesson in 2022. Those who are not in first can cost Republicans the ticket. Several months ago, he vowed that he would drop if he came in behind someone else. Dahlstrom never made that promise but said she would sit down with Begich and Gov. Mike Dunleavy and discuss the matter after the primary.
She didn’t, however. Before election results were in on Tuesday, Dahlstrom put up a press release on her website declaring herself as advancing to the general election. She then sent out a fundraising letter that celebrated her victory.
Must Read Alaska newsletter subscribers tend to be the conservative super voters in Alaska. They’re the ones who never miss an election. The newsletter is opened by more than 10,000 of these Alaskans every time it hits their email boxes.
In a previous week, Must Read Alaska ran a poll asking voters who they thought would be able to get the most done in Washington, D.C. — Mary Peltola, Nick Begich, or Nancy Dahlstrom. The results of that poll are:
Eagle River state Senate candidate Sharon Jackson, a Republican who came in last in the August primary election, has endorsed Republican Jared Goecker, the leading challenger of Sen. Kelly Merrick.
Republicans Goecker and Ken McCarty and Democrat Lee Hammermeister will head to the November ballot, along with incumbent Merrick, who is in her toughest campaign fight yet.
The results of the primary favor Goecker, who came within 43 votes of the well-funded, union-backed Merrick, who ended up forming up a Democrat-led majority in the Senate.
Goecker made the announcement in a press release.
“My goal has always been to support leaders who will champion the values we hold dear and work tirelessly for the betterment of Alaska. After Tuesday night’s primary results, it is clear to me that we must consolidate behind a single conservative to take this seat back,” said Jackson, who served a term as a state representative.
Jackson praised Jared Goecker for his dedication to conservative principles and his demonstrated leadership.
“Jared Goecker embodies the qualities that are essential for effective representation in the Alaska State Senate. His commitment to accountability, tough on crime policies, fiscal responsibility, and individual freedoms aligns perfectly with the vision we have worked toward. I am confident that he will be a strong advocate for our Chugiak-Eagle River shared values and will work diligently to address the needs of Alaskans,” she said.
“I am honored to receive Sharon Jackson’s endorsement and support,” Goecker said. “Her dedication to our community and her advocacy for conservative principles have been an inspiration to many. I am committed to continuing her legacy of service and to fighting for the issues that matter most to the people of Alaska.”
Jackson’s withdrawal and endorsement mark a big moment in the State Senate race, as her support is expected to bolster Goecker’s campaign and help consolidate conservatives to defeat leftist Kelly Merrick, Goecker said.
The election remains a crucial opportunity for Chugiak-Eagle River to choose a senator who will represent their values and address the challenges facing the state, his campaign said.
Rep. Jesse Sumner of House District 28-Wasilla has dropped from the general election ballot. That leaves Elexie Moore, Steve Menard, and Jessica Wright as the three who will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.
It has long been speculated that Sumner would not stay on the ballot, and recently when he came out in favor of ranked-choice voting, it made it more likely he did not intend to stay and was blocking for Menard to prevent a stronger candidate from getting in the race.
Sumner is a homebuilder, husband, and father. Being a legislator takes a toll on a young family, as the serving legislator can be away for months at a time. Observers have said it’s been hard on the Sumner family.
In the primary election, he received just short of 33% of the vote. Menard received 27.3%, Elexie Moore received 23.4% and Jessica Wright received 16.6%.
Sumner has only served one term in the Alaska Legislature. In 2022 when he ran, he was behind Menard in the jungle primary but went past him in the ranked-choice voting general election.
This news was first reported by Alaska Landmine political blog.
After just an hour of oral arguments in the Alaska Supreme Court Thursday morning, the justices unanimously ruled that the petition booklets for the repeal of ranked choice voting were good and the court denied attorney Scott Kendall his attempt to stop voters from being able to repeal the law he worked so hard to put into place.
The challenge Kendall had launched was due to some of the petition books being certified by a notary public who had allowed her notary certification to lapse. The lieutenant governor allowed the petition booklets to get corrected with an up-to-date notary and attorney Kendall objected to that. Kendall, a long-time ally of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, was the force behind Alaskans for Better Elections, which convinced Alaskans to have jungle primaries and ranked-choice general elections, a method that has allowed both Sen. Lisa Murkowski to stay in power and has ushered in Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola.
It was obvious judges were not favorable to Kendall and they had a lot of difficult questions for him that he answered vaguely.
“It’s rewarding the courts saw through the smokescreen the other side putting forward,” said Kevin Clarkson, attorney for the group defending the petition to get a do-over onto the ballot.
The court upheld the Superior Court’s decision and said it would file an opinion later explaining why.
The group that brought jungle primaries and ranked-choice voting has a huge war chest to try to convince Alaskans to keep the system. They and other liberal groups are already running ads saying that the system helps Republicans, but the evidence is clearly to the contrary.
The Outside dark money that the pro-ranked choice group has to spend will no-doubt impact many races on the ballot, while the anti-ranked-choice group has very little financial resources to reach Alaska voters and get them to vote Yes on this year’s Ballot Measure 2.
Previously, a judge had denied Kendall his attempt to get the question off of the November ballot, but the amount of advertising now blanketing TV and radio shows that the group trying to keep ranked-choice voting has known all along it had a weak case for stopping the voters from being able to decide if they want to continue with the scheme.
Where indeed is the outrage? The Biden/Harris administration has apparently lost track of 291,000 unaccompanied children, or UCs, as they are known. The Border Czar, Kamala Harris, has done nothing to staunch the flow of UCs, nevermind protect them or keep track of them.
Had this been a Trump Administration result, there would be protests and 24/7 news coverage. This highlights what’s wrong with America: Selective outrage, prosecution, and sagging morality. Evil is running rampant here.
We hear them tell us we black and brown skins are oppressed. Democrats tell you vote for them because the other party wants you enslaved—but not one Democrat shows a single ounce if concern is given for these (likely) brown-skinned UC’s that are lost somewhere in America. Why? Because the money made from them is lining some pockets. Lose a few hundred thousand minority kids—no big deal.
Minorities in America are being replaced with imported ones who have not known the true freedom America once had. They don’t know in their hearts what life was like when America was strong, a house could be bought on one salary and when a several carts (instead of two bags) of groceries was $150.
These replacements happily take the heavily loaded SNAP and cash cards, free phones and housing. Meanwhile our citizens, Americans of all colors, are struggling under record inflation … Inflation the Biden/Harris administration has the gall to tell us is getting better. It’s those evil corporations, they tell us.
We don’t appear to matter to the ruling elite. Yet we are told that we must vote for them year after year with zero ___s given to what happens in our communities.
The imported replacements killing Americans? No big deal. It’s a blip (or series of tiny, fleeting blips) in the news cycle. There are American lives being extinguished by people the Biden/Harris administration have allowed to walk across the border. Dreams dashed, families devastated. These violent people are let out of jail in a blink. But a grandmother praying outside an abortion clinic goes to jail for YEARS. They want us fighting among ourselves.
We are paying for services for these illegal immigrants with our taxes. Our grandchildren will pay the burgeoning debt, that is — if we have any grandchildren.
We Americans with black/brown skins are encouraged to abort our lineage. They put abortion clinics in our neighborhoods on purpose. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was inspired by eugenics. This is evil exploding in our time.
You see, I haven’t forgotten what my Alaska Native grandmother taught me. She taught me to respect ALL life. She taught me to be thankful to God and ingrained in us to be respectful to nature. We said Gunalchéesh when we caught and killed a fish. Her traditional beliefs showed the deep respect for life of all things. Can you imagine her horror listening to someone on the left promoting to-term abortion? I can — because I have the same horror. My grandmother instilled the respect for life in me. She taught us to have respect for ourselves. She taught us to not allow ourselves to be full of hatred toward those who were racist-she explained that they were sadly ignorant.
My grandmother wouldn’t tolerate us being ignorant. We all knew the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. She would not be voting for the progressive left Kamala Harris. I certainly will not be.
We shouldn’t tolerate racism of any kind, yet we are all sitting here while people are being discriminated against because of the color of their skin. We see evidence of people/companies being blatantly racist against whites. What happened to content of character?
We saw people looting and destroying people’s businesses. We see on the news people stealing en masse from stores. Then these same news anchors tell you that any business closure in crime ridden neighborhoods is racist. What happened to rule of law?
I read an article talking about how they choose to not teach minority children the same math, because math is racist. Actually-treating children differently according to race—is the definition of racism.
The current trend we see of racism toward whites is flat wrong. Can you honestly tell me that your grandmother or grandfather would say that’s the right way to act? Maybe you don’t care if your grandparents wouldn’t tolerate hateful racist behavior. If that’s true, we probably shouldn’t be friends. If they did, and you agree, we probably shouldn’t be friends.
If you disagree with me and want to start a flame or troll war on your keyboard, then you’re part of the problem. We should be able to agree to disagree.
There is no room for ignorance. This is not the time for apathy. Maybe you don’t like Trump. Think about though, did you like the economy under Trump?
Did you like the cost to fill your gas tank or the cost to fill your pantry and refrigerator, the lower interest rates for mortgages, elimination of the Obamacare individual mandate that hurt Americans more than it helped, and no foreign wars?
It’s time for all of the American people to wake up before this moral decay infects and eliminates us all. I encourage everyone to register to vote. Vote for conservatives and vote for Trump in 2024. Get friends registered. Vote. It’s critical. If you live in a swing state it’s even more important.
Marcy Sowers is an Alaskan Native of the Tlingit tribe, born in Juneau and currently living in Wasilla. The mother of three, Marcy attended Stanford University. She is married to author Mark Sowers and helps format his books. (Go ahead, give his books a read.)
Mounting pressure from across the state is unavoidable the day after the Alaska Primary Election: The grassroots is building into a rebellion against Nancy Dahlstrom, the state’s lieutenant governor, who came in a distant third in the race for Congress.
On social media, people are now tagging Gov. Mike Dunleavy with messages to stop endorsing Dahlstrom for Congress and to get on board with Nick Begich.
All the women’s Republican clubs but one endorse Nick Begich. The one that doesn’t is the one Dahlstrom is a member of. Even they, members of her own club, have not endorsed Dahlstrom.
All Alaska Young Republican Clubs endorse Nick Begich.
40% of the Republican District committees leaders have endorsed Nick Begich.
No grassroots entity in Alaska has endorsed Dahlstrom, but many are calling for her to drop out of the race. And they say the governor is not listening to them.
One activist in Juneau said that he felt Dahlstrom lied when she said that if she was not the prevailing Republican in the race for Congress, she would sit down with Begich after the primary and have a conversation about the general election.
But on election night, before all the results were even in, Dahlstrom put out a press statement saying she would not drop. Now, she is 30 points behind the Democrat incumbent, Rep. Mary Peltola, and the growing resentment around Alaska is palpable.
An activist in Kenai noted: “Nancy has a choice: She can drop out and begin to build her candidacy for governor, or she can stay in the race and destroy her entire political future.”
One thing appears clear from Fairbanks to Ketchikan: There is a grassroots rebellion underway and it is beginning to impact how Republicans feel about their Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has endorsed Dahlstrom. He has separated himself from the base of conservatives who elected him.
Even the National Republican Congressional Committee has appeared to back away from Dahlstrom, not even mentioning her name in its Election Night statement.
Must Read Alaska has learned that there is an unprecedented level of activity at the Republican district level on Wednesday, as activists take their next steps to try to get Dahlstrom to drop before the Sept. 2 deadline. Resolutions are being passed, letters are being written, and meetings are being held, as Republicans do not want to repeat what happened in 2022, when the leading Republicans ended up splitting the energy, resources, and enthusiasm for one candidate going into the general.
At its recent mid-June retreat, the Anchorage School Board worked hard to set low goals for teaching students how to read and do math.
Watch the retreat session and listen to the discussion on YouTube:
It is encouraging that the school board has set achievement goals for its staff and students. Goals for math and reading should be basic for any school district.
The retreat recording was not initially posted, but at my request Board President Andy Holleman did work to ensure the recordings were posted on YouTube for the public to hear. You can fast-forward through it and hear different parts of the discussion and presentation, which is revealing. Listening to the discussion is helpful to understand why they set such low, yet achievable, goals.
Here are the reading, math and graduation goals set by the board:
What percentage of students do you believe should be able to read at grade level and what percentage of students should be proficient in math?
Shouldn’t at least 50% of our students be able to read by 3rd grade? Shouldn’t at least 50% of our students be able to do math by 8th grade?
From the goal graphic above, it doesn’t look like the district believes that.
The district’s goal is that only 46.4% of third-grade students should be able to read at grade level by 2028. That’s not aspirational. It would seem they looked for a low number they might be able to achieve so they could be successful.
Goals should be aspirational. When one challenges a child to meet a high goal, many students will reach that goal and excel. That leads to self-worth, pride, and further student encouragement.
So, if you enroll your child in the district’s kindergarten this year, chances are less than 50/50 that your child will be able to read at grade level by the time your child is ready for fourth grade.
What parent would take a less than 50% chance that their child could read by third grade?
That child will have a very difficult time succeeding in other subjects such as math, science and social studies if he/she/they/them cannot read.
The saying goes, “A child learns to read by 4th grade so she can read to learn thereafter.”
Here is a chart from The Centre for Education and Youth that shows the relationship between reading and success in life:
As you can see, the future does not bode well for those students who are less literate.
An even greater question is, “If a school district cannot teach a child to read, what is it teaching?”
But there is some good news. In the current 2023 AK STAR test less than one-third (32.4%) of ASD current 3rd grade students read at grade level. So, it is an improvement if 46.4% read at grade level by 2028.
But how many of these 3rd grade students will read at grade level in later grades?
The board also set math proficiency goals at its retreat. It believes that only 41.5% of its 2028 8th grade students should be proficient at math. That’s not aspirational either.
This spells doom for many students who like STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes.
Those 2028 8th grade students are today in the 5th grade. That student cohort scored 40% in math proficiency in 2023 in the AK STAR. This is just slightly below the goal set for them by the time they reach 8th grade.
But, once again, there is good news — sort of. In the 2023 AK STAR tests less than 35% of 8th graders were proficient in math. So, the district is hoping that the 2028 8th grade students will at least improve by six and a half percentage points.
Again, the question is, “If a school district cannot teach a child to do math, what is it teaching?”.
Finally, the Anchorage School District sets a graduation goal of 90% by 2028.
This presents a real contradiction: How can the graduation rate be so high if students cannot read at grade level and do math at grade level?
Maybe, just maybe, some of these students will not be able to read their diplomas.
It is clear that the district will probably achieve its very low goals. And it will declare success. But will students be able to achieve their goals? And will they be successful in life?
After a meeting with the head of the police union in Anchorage and the chief of police earlier this week, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance asked her allies on the Anchorage Assembly to hold a “special meeting” of the Assembly’s Public Health and Safety Committee. That way, she could get an apology she had promised to police on the record for her prior comments, which were made at a press conference last week and appeared to disparage uniformed officers.
LaFrance went on at length describing how devastated she was upon learning of the loss of the life of a 16-year-old earlier this month, who was shot dead by police after she came at them with a knife. Her comments last week poured all of her sympathy into the family of the victim, and made no recognition of the difficulty police have not knowing if they will see their families again after each shift. She had poured gas on the fire that liberals have created which has made police into the bad guys.
LaFrance admitted on Wednesday that she needs to listen more and hear the concerns of officers.
Evidently her newfound understanding of police came after a meeting in which many members of the uniformed officer staff attended and expressed their dismay at her public comments.
“Multiple things can be true at once,” LaFrance said Wednesday, adding that her grief for the family of the teen, who was going through a homicidal phase, does not undermine support for sworn officers, and vice versa.
She and Police Chief Sean Case, who was also at the Wednesday meeting, laid out the basic plan that she has for the investigation into the shooting. Last week, she had indicated she was taking away the power of the internal affairs officials and getting an outside third party to do an investigation.
While last week she referred to the routine investigation that is done by the State Office of Special Prosecutions, today LaFrance acknowledged that the state investigation will have to come before the third-party investigation, and it all may take weeks or months.
Assembly members Felix Rivera, Daniel Volland, and Meg Zaletel are working on creating a citizens accountability group that will oversee the police. Surprisingly Assemblyman Chris Constant counseled the Assembly to slow down and wait until the facts come in about the shooting and other shootings this year involving officers.
Much of the meeting focused on the need for an expansion of the Mobile Intervention Team, which is a combination of mental health clinicians and paramedics who can respond to behavioral health calls. There is currently not enough staff or funding or staff to support the unit on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis. Part of the funding for the unit comes from the alcohol tax passed by voters.
LaFrance did not issue a written apology or press release regarding her statements on Wednesday. She spoke her words into a meeting that was not advertised to the public and which had no agenda that had been released.
