The small band of Republicans who are organized and active in the Democratic stronghold of downtown Anchorage have voted to endorse Nick Begich for Congress.
The District 17 endorsement of the new generation of Republican leadership brought the total to nine of the 36 organized districts in Alaska now endorsing Begich, who doesn’t take after his well-known Democrat uncles, Tom and Mark.
Nick Begich is the political renegade in the family and he has crisscrossed the state with a free-market, free people message, which is now resulting in a tidal wave of endorsements. Raised by conservative grandparents on his mother’s side, he has been a Republican since high school and is the former finance chair for the Alaska Republican Party.
In 2022’s general election, Rep. Mary Peltola won 4,418 votes in District 17, fully 70% of the vote. But the Republicans who live in downtown Anchorage are a tightly knit-together group. When they met this week, they threw their support to the candidate who got the most Republican votes there in 2022 — a businessman who isn’t a government swamp dweller.
District 17’s endorsement of Begich tips the balance even more. Now, 25% of the districts have gone with Nick Begich, rather than taking orders from D.C. elites who pushed Nancy Dahlstrom into the race last November, even after Begich had been campaigning for six months. Dahlstrom and the D.C. elites are now spending 100,000 a day bombarding Alaskans with messages on their phones, televisions, radios, and computers.
Districts that have announced their endorsement for Begich now include 6, 8, 17, 23, 25, 26, 29, 34, and 36.
Not a single Republican district in Alaska has endorsed Dahlstrom.
Begich has received endorsements from six of the seven Republican women’s clubs and both of the Alaska Young Republicans chapters. No club has endorsed Dahlstrom.
He is also the only congressional candidate who has signed the petition to repeal ranked choice voting and the only candidate who has said he will drop from the race if he is not the leading Republican candidate after the primary. Mary Peltola supports ranked-choice voting and Dahlstrom won’t take a stand because she says since it’s on the ballot, she should not comment.
Voting is already underway in the primary with early voting and absentee early voting, with Election Day on Aug 20, when the polls close at 8 p.m.
