In Alaska’s vast Interior state House district, Republicans worry about a split vote

Ahead of next week’s general election, the Alaska Republican Party is urging its supporters to vote in favor of a measure that would repeal the state’s ranked choice elections system.

But before they vote on repeal, members of the GOP in the state’s largest House district are being asked to use the system one last time to boost the odds of keeping the district in Republican hands.

In House District 36, four candidates — two Republicans, a Democrat and a Libertarian — are on the ballot to replace Republican Rep. Mike Cronk, who is running for state Senate.

The district leans Republican, but Republican candidates Rebecca Schwanke and Pam Goode are worried that if voters split between them, Democratic candidate Brandon Kowalski will win.

“If you fail to rank all Republicans in a race like mine, we will split the conservative vote, and we’ll hand it to the Democrat. Please vote wisely,” Schwanke said in one of several ads that urge voters to “rank the red.”

Goode said she’s posting on Facebook, asking her supporters to take similar action.

If a candidate gets 50% of voters’ first-choice ballots, they win without using ranked choice voting. In a race with four candidates, no one is likely to get that amount.

“I think that certainly, if they do end up splitting the vote, that might end up helping me. But I also think that despite me being a registered Democrat, I think there is a chance that we could get 50% (of the vote),” Kowalski said.

Libertarian James Fields is a listed candidate as well, but he told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner shortly after the primary that he is not campaigning and had intended to withdraw from the race but missed the deadline to do so.

Fields could not be reached by phone on Wednesday, and it isn’t clear how his presence on the ballot will affect the four-way race. Schwanke also did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Control of the Alaska House of Representatives is closely balanced between a predominantly Republican majority coalition and a predominantly Democratic minority coalition.

If House District 36 were to flip from Republican to Democratic, it would increase the chances that the current minority coalition could take control of the House.

That would act as a brake on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s actions in the last two years of his term. Continued Republican control of the House likely would help the governor and could enable more conservative policies.

In Schwanke’s ads, she says a vote for her is a vote for continued Republican control of the House.

On Tuesday, Schwanke and Kowalski attended the race’s last preelection candidate forum, hosted by the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. Bad weather kept Goode from attending.

“One of the really great things about Brandon and I is we actually share some goals, and we have the same top priorities. We have education, we have economic development, and subsistence,” Schwanke told those in attendance, according to a recording provided by KUAC-FM, the local public radio station.

By phone afterward, Kowalski said Schwanke isn’t wrong, but while they share goals, they do differ on approaches.

When it comes to fishing issues, both Schwanke and Kowalski support tougher restrictions on commercial and sport fishing in order to benefit subsistence fishers.

On resource development, Kowalski said that mining will continue to be an important part of Alaska’s economy, but he’s not certain about some projects, including the proposed Ambler Road.

He, like Schwanke, supports a trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline in order to bring down local energy costs.

While they both vow to support education, they say they’ll go about it in different ways. Kowalski opposes Dunleavy’s decision to veto a permanent increase to the base student allocation — the core of the state’s per-student funding formula for public schools.

Schwanke said she would have voted to sustain the veto, which was upheld by a single vote. Cronk, the district’s current representative, voted to sustain the veto.

Kowalski and Schwanke also differ on the proposed restoration of a state pension program for public employees: Schwanke opposes that restoration, while Kowalski supports it.

Based on the results of the August primary election and the district’s political leanings, Schwanke is believed to be the front-runner in next week’s vote.

Dunleavy has endorsed Schwanke, as have Cronk and former state Rep. Dave Talerico, who represented much of the district before Cronk. She’s also been endorsed by other Alaska Republican Party leaders.

Kowalski has the endorsement of the Alaska Democratic Party as well as Planned Parenthood’s campaign wing and the campaign group for NEA-Alaska, the state’s largest teachers union.

Through Oct. 29, Goode had raised over $15,000 for her campaign, Schwanke had raised about $36,000, and Kowalski had raised under $28,000.

If Schwanke is the choice of traditional Republicans, Goode has support outside the party’s mainstream. A former aide to Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, she said in August that it wouldn’t be correct to consider her another Eastman.

“He’s his own person, and I am my own person, and I don’t think it’s fair to any candidate out there when people try to put them in a box that is not their own,” she said at the time.

“You don’t go into the Legislature to be elected, to follow in somebody else’s footsteps. You go in there on your own, representing your district,” she said.

She has a different list of priorities than Kowalski and Schwanke — her No. 1 priority is a “solid fiscal solution” that incorporates the traditional Permanent Fund dividend formula, she said.

At present rates of spending on services, a traditional dividend would create a deficit of roughly $1 billion based on the current budget and revenue forecasts, if an expected energy relief payment is subtracted.

Goode opposes a statewide income or sales tax to cover that cost but favors alternative revenue options, such as diverting a petroleum property tax currently collected by local governments.

Any remaining deficit could be addressed by cutting spending, she said, explaining that the state needs to reprioritize what it wants to pay for.

Correction: The Alaska Republican Party has not officially endorsed a candidate in the House District 36 race, though many of its leaders are backing Schwanke. This article has been updated.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.