A summary sheet is seen during ballot review on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, at the headquarters of the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
When Nick Begich arranged to meet Matt Salisbury at Matanuska Brewing in Eagle River last Thursday, he intended the get-together to be a simple scouting mission.
Salisbury finished fourth in Alaska’s U.S. House primary last month, and Begich, who finished second, wanted to get to know his fellow Republican.
Instead, the hourslong talk over food helped convince Salisbury to quit the race before Monday’s withdrawal deadline.
Replacing Salisbury is the sixth-place finisher, Eric Hafner. He’s currently serving a 20-year federal prison term in New York state for threatening multiple public officials.
In an interview Tuesday morning, Salisbury said the talk with Begich wasn’t the only factor in his decision to quit, but as they spoke, he came to realize that Begich’s campaign platform has a lot in common with his own.
“We were able to align some of our views, especially the big ones where I really wanted to see change enacted, especially on bottom trawling,” Salisbury said.
The 30-year-old University of Georgia graduate has emphasized his desire for the federal government to ban bottom trawling as a way to restore Alaska’s salmon runs.
After their meeting, Begich said in a social media post that the two men agree “that we must end bottom trawl practices in Alaska that destroy the seabed ecosystem and impact non-targeted species.”
Begich and Salisbury also agreed on the need to protect Social Security funding and encourage private homeownership.
Begich, through a spokesperson, declined comment for this article, but Bernadette Wilson, senior adviser to Begich’s campaign, helped coordinate the meeting and confirmed the details shared by Salisbury.
The meeting was not to get Salisbury out of the race, she said, and Begich didn’t bring up the topic, something Salisbury confirmed. Wilson had advised Begich to meet with Salisbury as a way to get to know him before the general election campaign began in earnest.
“We did not know Salisbury at all. And so — especially as you head into a general election and you’ve got to rank the other candidates, well, it’s just kind of nice to know who the other Republican is,” Wilson said.
Salisbury has not been active in state politics, did not campaign, and received 0.6% of the vote in the primary.
Begich didn’t offer Salisbury any incentive to get out of the race, both Wilson and Salisbury said.
Other things helped decide his decision to withdraw, Salisbury said, including “a couple really rude experiences” involving Alaska Republicans criticizing his candidacy.
They were critical of the fact that he was running as a Republican but opposed Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy.
After that criticism, Salisbury felt that it would be dishonest to continue identifying as a Republican candidate if he wasn’t willing to support the party leader.
“I just couldn’t really bring myself to continue on this ticket with the way things are nationally right now and the way some people have just acted,” he said.
Under Alaska’s election system, the top four candidates in the primary, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
The third-place finisher, Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, previously withdrew from the race, which allowed the fifth-place finisher, John Wayne Howe of the Alaska Independence Party, to advance to the general election ballot.
Salisbury’s decision means sixth-place finisher, Eric Hafner, advances to the general election as well.
While Salisbury, Howe and Hafner each received less than 1% of the vote in the statewide primary, the maneuvering at the bottom of the top-four ballot will have some impact on Begich and incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, the frontrunner.
Alaska uses ranked choice voting in the general election, which allows voters to pick multiple candidates, in order of preference.
But Republicans have been less willing to rank multiple candidates, and before the primary, Begich was among the loudest voices urging a unified Republican front.
With Salisbury out of the race, Begich no longer has to worry about a split ticket.
Peltola, on the other hand, now does. While Democrats have been willing to use ranked choice voting, there’s now the possibility that a second Democrat in the race will create a spoiler effect.
If a candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes in the general election, they win without ranked choice voting taking effect. Peltola had 50.89% of the vote share in the primary election.
Top Democrats are wondering how Hafner is even eligible to run.
The U.S. Constitution requires a House candidate to be at least 25 years old, a citizen for at least seven years, and to be an inhabitant of the state “when elected.”
Hafner is expected to be in prison for at least 12 years more, making it all but impossible for him to come to Alaska, if he were to somehow be elected.
“We’re all over here, scratching our heads about how someone who is incarcerated in New York is going to fulfill the constitutional obligation of being in the state on Election Day or to take office,” said Lindsay Kavanaugh, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party.
Hafner, speaking to KRBD-FM radio before the primary election, said that if he were elected, he believes he would be set free from prison under federal “compassionate release” laws.
“Whether he would be in Alaska when elected is a question that would be answered at that time,” said Alaska Division of Elections director Carol Beecher. “We don’t know if he would be in the state or not.”
Informed of the state’s position, Kavanaugh said, “That is completely nonsensical.”
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