Robert

Proud of the staff at The Homer News and the Peninsula Clarion who are resigning. Unfortunately, thanks to Sarah's cancel culture crusade, Alaska is losing four fantastic local journalists. Vance NEEDS to be held accountable for her overreach of power.

Dunleavy Republicans wrote an amendment expanding corporal punishment in Alaska's schools. Here's MAGA Rep. Jamie Allard's surprisingly great speech against it.

"I was a child of the 70's. They whipped us. If I saw one of those teachers, I might run them over with a bus!"

Jamie Allard is horrible, obviously, but this is a VERY popular strain of anti-indigenous conservatism — and lots of liberals are a part of it too.

I could write a book about how white people are addicted to tokenizing conservative indigenous voices to entrench anti-indigenous sentiments. these are the (mostly white) Alaskans who refuse to say Utqiaġvik instead of Barrow and who look down on Native communities struggling with abuse/poverty.

Crazy that we could hold MI + GA, flip ME, NC, *and* TX, and we’d STILL be short 1 seat 😭

Map by @statisticurban showing control of state government. Purple = split control, blue/red = Dem/GOP trifecta, and yellow states have Dem governors but a GOP supermajority in the legislature.

Fun fact: Alaska Republicans have not controlled all 3 branches in the state since *2014*. This year is also the first time since we were a blue state that R’s are out of power in BOTH branches.

(this map by @statisticurban.bsky.social shows control of state gov after November)

Vance is the weakest Republican legislator in Alaska, hands down. She underperforms the top of ticket in almost every cycle.

2020: Trump +15.5, Vance +9
2022: Dunleavy/Pierce +10, Vance +8
2024: Trump +16, Vance +4.5

Just coasting by on luck in a Trump +16 seat.

Despite Johnsons impressive performance, why'd he lose?

Homer is pretty liberal, but its working class and low turnout — Biden +11 to Harris +6. It's also just over 50% of the votes. The northern half is much older, rural, religious, and low college ed. Very tough seat.

Meanwhile, Brent Johnson put up an incredible performance in Kasilof — a working class fishing community that voted for Trump by 40 points. Johnson lost it by just 18, the best Dem or Indie performance in Kasilof since LBJ.

Regional advantages play a strong role in the Southern Kenai Peninsula, which is made up of a collection of fishing towns surrounding the larger Homer area.

Republican Dawson Slaughter took 9% of the vote by getting 23% in his hometown of Anchor Point.

Rep. Sarah Vance won re-election with the lowest margin of victory in her career. Independent Brent Johnson was one of few Dem-backed candidates to outrun both Harris AND Peltola.

My hometown of Homer went hard for Brent, but low Dem turnout sunk his chances.

you know we’ve lost Myrna’s when all the straight people are singing along to every song 😅

This is missing a lot of data since I’m constantly streaming music on YouTube, but this is definitely a fair representation of my year in music lmao

Despite a small red wave, D’s *net* 1 seat in the House. 5 more seats and we would have had a majority — which makes Peltola’s loss all the more painful.

i think what's so daunting to liberals about trump's comeback is that the shift was so widespread. brain breaking margins for R's in cities D's normally dominate in.

the actual *margin* trump will win by is very, very small. it's just that his coalition was so *efficient*

Nov 2022:

1st round - Begich/Palin +24
Final: Begich/Palin +4

Nov 2024:

1st round - Begich +10
Final - ?

Peltola did better in 1st round results this time than 2022. She lost it by 14 in 2022 (+2 after RCV, but exhaustion distorts those margins) but +10 this time. Not sure of the after RCV margin in 2024.

The rest of the top 10 R 2012-2024 shifts are in rural Alaska, — particularly driven by Native-plurality or majority communities in Alaska (2, 37-40). The majority white rural Mat-Su (29-30) and Southwest Interior communities (36) have much smaller shifts.

This is a map of average household income per precinct, as per the Census. Mountainview’s is the purple precinct, which stands out as one of the lowest in the state. Mountainview is home to a vibrant community of working class, mostly 1st and 2nd generation immigrants. It is home to some of the most diverse census tracts in the entire country.

In the Top 10 R shifts since 2012, just one district from Anchorage makes the cut: HD19, Mountainview and Airport Heights. These are the most diverse and working class census tracts in the country.

Mountainview alone was Obama +35 (2012) to Harris +18.

A map of the shift in presidential margins between the 2012 and 2024 elections in Alaska. For instance, Romney won Anchorage’s HD23 by 37 points in 2012. Trump won the same HD by 18 points in 2024. That’s a shift towards Democrats of nearly 19% - the second highest shift in the State of Alaska.

Of Alaska's 40 House Districts, the top 10 shifts to the left from 2012-2024 are ALL in Anchorage — every single one being from the suburbs.

Jamie Allard (HD23), the most extreme MAGA R in the Legislature, sits in a Romney +37➡️Trump +19 seat.

Peltola came within 10 points of winning it.

trump has basically 1-3 actual convictions. things he doesn't just say to pander and sell shit.

this is one of them. him, and many many voters, think this because it sounds smart

Trumpers would say that these prices would never get paid because this is all one big strategy to get canada/mexico/china to agree to better trade deals.

yeah, no. that's not how this works. he tried this once, it didn't work. now he'll try again but it'll be much worse.

i don't really think people realize what a 25% tariff means. like if you think inflation was high from 2021-2023?? hahaha. silly and tiny compared to what's about to happen.

i want chappell roan to sing hot to go with the muppets and i want her to be miss piggy's first lesbian kiss. i will execute one hostage every hour until these demands are met

This is despite losing both Cliff Groh (D, flip) and Dan Ortiz (I, retired). Dems convinced 2 R’s to join the coalition. The breakdown:

14D’s
5 I’s
2 R’s

R’s Stutes and Kopp and Independent Edgmon are top leadership, while at least 1 Democrat chairs every single committee.

To my knowledge, the Alaska State House is the *only* state legislative chamber to flip from 🔴➡️🔵

This is bc @TheAlaskaDems just flipped 3 House seats. A Dem-led multi-partisan coalition now controls BOTH the House and Senate. Not enough people are talking about this!!

An acceptable r^2 depends on the context. Given we’re talking about a social science here I think 0.2 is decent

Even in majority-white boroughs like Anchorage, Independent registration is highest in low-college educated, working class, diverse neighborhoods. Voters in the suburbs and richer areas are much, much more likely to be registered D or R.

A majority of the state is Independent, but it varies *heavily* by demographic.

Denali is 83% white. 53% of registered voters are Independent. That's definitely a lot...

...but the average Indie % of Alaska Native majority/plurality boroughs? 63%.

Great write up on how Ballot Measure 2's vote correlated pretty strongly with Native-majority precincts — home to some of the highest rates of Independent registration in the state.

When we say "Alaska is so independent", we mostly mean rural and non-white voters.