Alaska Insight is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by viewers just like you.

Thank you.

As the November election draws closer, what do Alaskans think is the best way forward in an overheated political cycle?

I think when we gather together and we go out and vote and we talk about things, I think that builds a community.

What do voters say they want candidates to prioritize?

We'll learn more about Alaskans perspectives on election issues and candidates right now on Alaska Insight.

Good evening, and thank you for joining us for the leadoff episode of season eight of Alaska Insight.

We're glad to have you with us and excited about this season's lineup of programs and our earlier start time of 7 p.m. tonight.

We're going to dive into a discussion on the upcoming November election.

Alaska has many candidates running to return to the Alaska Legislature or running to challenge incumbents.

Alaskans will decide who will be their sole representative in the US House, and of course, will vote for the next US president.

Before we drill down on Alaskans sentiments about their choices, here are some of the recent top stories from Alaska Public Media's collaborative statewide news network.

Alaska state health officials say rates of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, are the highest they've been in the state in more than ten years.

As of last week, over 230 cases were recorded by the state, with about 160 of those being in children under 15.

Whooping cough at first seems like many other respiratory diseases, but follows the typical cold symptoms with extreme difficulty in breathing in young children, particularly those less than a year old.

The disease can lead to hospitalization or death.

Officials recommend taking young children in for testing right away if there are signs of a cold, so any cases of pertussis can be treated quickly.

A cable repair ship is mending a broken fiber optic cable that took Sitka offline in late August.

The break occurred in a stretch of cable between Sitka and Goon in Salisbury Sound, though what caused the break is still unknown.

A representative for GCI said Monday they expect repairs to be done by the end of the week.

The company has also restored basic internet and cell service using a combination of satellite and microwave technology.

GCI is offering a month of free credit to all of their affected customers, which will be automatically applied to their bills.

About a dozen schools in the Anchorage School District and others across the state are banning or restricting student's cell phone use during the school day this fall.

While the exact policies differ from school to school, principals, parents and teachers are reporting noticeably different behavior in students that they attribute to these new policies.

Currently, individual principals in Anchorage make the call about how to enforce cell phone policies.

But school board member Kelly lessons says she's working on an updated, district wide policy that she hopes to have ready for next year, next school year.

After hearing from community members, you can find the full version of these and many more stories on our website.

alaskapublic.org or by downloading the Alaska Public Media app on your phone.

Now on to our discussion for this evening.

Alaska Public Media political reporters Liz Ruskin and Eric Stone spent several weeks traveling around the state this summer, talking with Alaskans about the issues that matter most to them.

In the lead up to the November election, Matt Faubion joined them on a road trip portion of their tour to the communities of Eagle River, Wasilla and Palmer.

The race for the 2024 general election carries on.

As well as Alaska Public Media.

If you plan to drive from Eagle River to Wasilla and then Palmer.

And we wanted to find regular Alaskans going about their routines.

So we started where any of us would begin one day at Jitters Coffee.

We met 18 year old Joshua Wilcox, who is a student at Eagle River High School.

It's an election year.

How do you feel about your political processes?

Honestly, it's kind of iffy.

This is my first time ever voting, so.

Wilcox says that he still needs to read a little bit more on the candidates.

But his first impressions are that no one in office is talking to each other.

Are you really here about is I'm going to make it better and I'm going to show it.

But you don't really ever seem like talking to people or anything like that.

I want to talk to the people, and I want them to tell us the problems that are wrong with the state.

So what should politicians be talking about?

I think public transportation would be helpful.

Nicole Smith is the assistant principal at West High School.

She commutes daily from her home in Eagle River to Anchorage.

It's really hard, I think, for people to get in and out of Anchorage from Eagle River without a reliable mode of transportation.

The next morning, after the rain and clouds cleared, we drove to Wasilla and stopped to talk to folks at the local post office.

Contractor Slavomir Grabianowski described his time growing up in Alaska and the change that he has seen in Wasilla.

I've seen a, I think, a positive direction.

Just about everyone I speak to is conservative or they're friendly and so forth.

The two unfriendly people I met were from California, so.

And is is from California code for, you know, liberal.

The People's Republic of Communist California.

Does that answer your question?

As rush hour was ending at the Palmer Post Office, we caught one last interview with Michelle Bartholomew, a teacher at Valley Montessori School in Wasilla.

I think when we gather together and we go out and vote and we talk about things, I think that builds a community instead of turn it apart.

Still, many people talked about their political divisions.

But then Jared Gabel, a pilot from Juneau who recently moved to Palmer, said that division feels a bit different in Alaska.

People at my work that are probably we are probably pretty divided politically, I would guess, but we all get along because we all love Alaska and we all love to get outside and enjoy this great.

State from the Mat-su borough.

I'm Matt Faubion.

Joining me tonight to discuss their road trip and conversations with Alaskan voters is Alaska Public Media's Washington, D.C., correspondent Liz Ruskin and state government reporter Eric Stone.

Thanks both of you for being here.

Thank you.

It's great to have you both to start the season off.

So, Eric, I want to start with you.

Get us going here.

Describe what the goal was with this road trip.

So a lot of the time in election coverage focuses on who's ahead, who's raising more money.

A lot of what we hear is, you know, sort of polished and it comes from politicians and we don't hear so much from directly from voters.

And, as I started this, state government reporting job in November, and part of what I wanted to do was get a sense of what Alaskans actually care about.

Right?

So, you know, not just not just the issues that come up in Juneau, but, you know, what is impacting people's everyday lives?

What are the most important issues that are on folks minds, and how are they feeling about, you know, political division and what do they want for the future of their communities, things like that.

All right.

Thank you.

And Liz, your thoughts here.

How did you decide where to go?

Oh, well, budget had something to do with that.

And, the road system we got, I got to go to Kotzebue, which I thought was fabulous.

and, you know, there's so much more of Alaska that I, we could have visited, and I hope to get to some some year.

but I wanted to add to something that Eric said, and that's that we, you know, as political reporters, we often hear from the most organized, the most, outspoken, advocates out, from a lot of Alaska and not the rank and file everyday voters.

And so we wanted to cast a wider net.

Was it difficult to get people to talk to you?

I mean, you're talking about trying to reach out to people who aren't used to being on a microphone or in front of a camera.

Well, how.

Difficult was that?

I think we expected a lot of, rejection, you know, where it caused people outside cafes and post offices and we, you know, we got a lot of, but, yeah, I was really surprised that the number of people we were able to engage that, took time out of their day to talk to us, you know, unexpectedly.

And, those conversations, some of them were really terrific.

We you mentioned a little bit about this, but talk about the strategy here of where you decided to go to talk to people and what you found to be the best spots for finding a wide range of citizens.

Yeah.

Well, we started off, sort of going to coffee shops and grocery stores and things like that.

But then, you know, at our first stop on the road trip, which was Eagle River, we really found the most people willing to talk to us at the post office.

and, you know, as we sort of thought about it, the post office seemed like a really great place to meet people because, especially in lots of rural Alaska, people have P.O.

Boxes, you know, there's not streetside mail delivery, and you run into people who live in the community, and, it's.

And you cast a very wide net that way.

Yeah.

We did find, that, going to coffee shops wasn't really the best option because, you know, we're living in polarized communities.

There are conservative coffee shops and liberal coffee shops, and the post office was more neutral ground.

Interesting.

I'd never thought of coffee shops in me political leanings, but it does make.

Sense.

That that would be the case.

Eric, what were some of the common themes that you heard from people in these communities?

Well, for some of the communities they had, you know, very specific issues that they were very concerned about, like in Valdez, we heard a lot about housing and childcare.

you know, one thing about childcare in Valdez is, you know, the, the, the largest provider that they used to have shuttered during the pandemic.

And it's very difficult for people now to find adequate childcare.

And that has all kinds of effects on the economy and the workforce and things of that nature.

we also heard that, you know, in Homer, about, you know, how difficult it is to make a living as a fisherman, and how that sort of perhaps pushing people away from that as a career.

We heard from a, you know, a young man who wanted to, you know, buy into the fishery, buy a boat, buy a permit, but just couldn't make it work.

you know, financially.

Because, you know, when these when these runs fail, it's difficult to, to get disaster relief funding in time, for for it to really make a difference.

It's, but, you know, across the, across many of the states, we heard a lot about the economy.

We heard a lot about immigration, you know, these big national issues that that people to, are concerned about, and a lot about the cost of living.

yeah.

And for both of you, a lot of voters are fairly entrenched and, seem to have already made up their minds.

But did you hear anything surprising?

Did you hear from folks who maybe did decide to change how they'll vote because of specific issues?

Well, one thing that really surprised me when we stopped at, an outdoor market in Soldotna, we spoke with we spoke with, a woman who was selling CBD products there at the, at the market.

And, she, she, you know, was a very conservative voter.

She was, you know, honed in on immigration, especially was her was her big topic.

and, you know, from a very conservative voter like that, you know, they have a there's a Senate race down there between, Ben Carpenter, a very conservative Republican, and Jesse Bjorkman, who has collaborated with, you know, a Democratic and moderate Republican colleagues in this bipartisan majority.

And, you know, coming in, I would have thought that that, Shonda is her name would vote for Ben Carpenter.

But she told me that, no, in fact, she was, she was pretty set on voting for Jesse Bjorkman, in part because of, the way that his office had helped her with, with specific problems, the way that she, you know, she'd seen him, in the community, you know, helping people out and things like that.

So I was I was very surprised to hear that, that she was, you know, interested in what?

What is, you know, sort of considered the more moderate candidate in that race, given that she's very conservative.

That is interesting that, that connection makes a big difference.

People see you and you show up in the community.

It makes a difference.

That constituent service, at least in that instance, trumped, ideology.

And Liz, how about for you?

we met lots of people who surprised us.

especially, folks who signaled that they were, very conservative and then said things that were much more moderate.

also the reverse, but, I think we have some tape from Mike Dunlap, whom we ran into in Kenai.

He's from Nikiski, and he had a lot of interesting things to say.

Let's hear from him.

I voted for Trump.

I'm ashamed I did, only because when that deal took over on the Capitol, he kept his mouth shut.

He could have opened up and said something like, you all protest all you want, but don't enter.

And if he said that they listened, at least a bunch of them would have listened.

You know they didn't.

So, you know, when it comes to that, you know what?

I vote for him again, you know, with a couple of hockey sticks on it.

You know, I mean, I'm not I'm not big on him.

you know, Biden, I was kind of, you know, he's he's more China than he is.

America.

But then I got what?

Your name, I guess.

Who's running the vice president?

And I will vote for her, you know, only because of her name.

And she seems to be an honest individual.

All right, Eric, housing is challenging, as we know, across the state.

You reported on the specific need in Valdez when you visited that community.

Talk about what you found there.

That makes the housing need in that community somewhat unique.

Yeah.

Well, as you say, housing is this big issue in communities around the state, and folks are addressing it in different ways.

And they'll this is similar to a lot of communities.

And it's also very different.

You know, it's similar in that it's a coastal community where where the sort of the available land is fairly limited.

It's far from things.

It's difficult to get contractors, construction materials and things like that.

But it's also unique in in the way that it has sort of developed throughout the years.

You know, after the 1964 earthquake, the town had to move.

and that led to a spurt of construction.

And it really has grown in these fits and starts.

you know, there was the earthquake, then there was the opening of the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

There was the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

And all of these were associated with booms and construction.

but since then, there really hasn't been that much there hasn't been that much development.

and, partly as a result of that, you know, sort of growing in fits and starts, you have a lot of mobile homes in Valdez in particular.

something like a quarter of all homes and buildings are mobile homes.

And, they'll these, as many folks know, is a very, very snowy community, 300 plus inches of snow a year.

And some of these flat roofed trailers, you know, they they don't take they don't take these heavy snow loads very well.

So yeah, you have all these all these unique factors and all these sort of, common factors, of course, interest rates are very high.

That's, that's true across the nation.

but one of the things that why I wanted to take a look at Valdez is because they're doing all these very interesting things to address that problem.

like, there's a, there's an incentive program that provides people $10,000 if they create a new dwelling unit, whether that's a house or something like an accessory dwelling unit or, but just, you know, somewhere for people to live and, it does have a string attached to it that relates to this, the short term rentals, you know, short term rentals tend to take long term housing off the market and things of things like that.

so if you get this $10,000 grant, you can't use your home as an Airbnb for the next five years.

The city is also, you know, given away some land to a developer to, you know, developed a senior housing project, because that was one of the needs that they identified was, was housing for, for the community seniors.

and yeah, I mean, it was just really remarkable, to see what they've done.

They're also applying for a grant that would, essentially replace a lot of these mobile homes that are in bellevue's, you know, they they're aiming to get, you know, dozens of them, through a federal grant, both to expand existing stock.

and also, you know, replace some of these homes that are that are really, really in bad shape.

So, you know, Valdez is really pursuing an all of the above approach when it comes to housing.

And, I thought that was just a very interesting, interesting thing to take a look at, especially because we we really don't hear that much from Valdez.

You know, there's not a, not a, there's not like a public radio.

There's not a public radio station on the news department there.

There is a public radio station there just doesn't have a news department right now.

So, so interesting that they're doing this multi-pronged approach.

And, you know, we'll have to watch that because it might, kind of lead the way for other communities going forward.

That's right.

Yeah.

So the officials I talked to, we're we're very excited about, you know, hey, keep an eye on Valdez.

We're doing we're doing things that might be relevant for your community.

so, you know, keep an eye on what we're doing.

And anecdotally, some of the folks we talked to, Invalides, you know, told us that, you know, housing has been a big issue for them in the past.

but, you know, for some folks, it feels like the pressure is easing a little bit.

All right.

Thank you.

Let's zoom around the state a little more.

Luis, you spent time in Kotzebue.

How did concerns differ for Alaskans in the Arctic and way off the road system, then from folks who live in the Matsubara?

Well, certainly the cost of living, concerns were, central and and had a whole different flavor than, folks on the road system spoke of.

but also our questions.

The answers we got to our questions about divisiveness were really interesting.

And I thought in Kotzebue, that there was much more practical approach that I heard that it was, a lot of people said, we're in a small community.

We all just have to get along.

Fred Smith, I believe we have tape of him.

He was, he epitomized that sort of thing.

So let's hear from him.

Here in Kotzebue.

He was in just kind of comes and goes depending on what the issue is.

You know, you can't be opposed to somebody your whole life.

So it sounds like, the kind of national polarization that we keep hearing about that that's not really as much at play here.

I don't think you do.

You know, it takes a lot of people's attention right now, because the news is keeping it that way.

But in terms of locally, you know, I have my my thought process in what I favor.

The guy next door over here, he has his thought process and what he favors.

So, but we work together every day.

It's not like, I cut him off because he doesn't think the way I do.

we got to come here every day to put our time and.

Pull in your community.

Liz, while you were in Kotzebue, you reported on, the candidates running for district 40 seat.

The incumbent is Thomas Baker.

He was a Republican when he was appointed to the state house by Governor Dunleavy.

But now he's running as an independent to keep the seat.

Who's challenging Baker?

And what did voters say about their options?

There?

well, the the candidates challenging are Robin Burke from Gatwick and, Simon Chase, from Kotzebue.

So, there were some geographic concerns.

Those are two hub cities.

And Thomas Baker is also from Kotzebue.

So, that kind of divided the vote a little bit.

geographically.

But the big issue was education funding.

Thomas Baker voted to uphold the governor's veto of an education bill, and that was the central issue.

All right.

And and, the Eagle River Chugiak race between incumbent Republican Representative Kelly Merrick and challengers such as Republican Jared Gerber is this is a conservative district, and the incumbent defended working in a bipartisan coalition.

Did you get a sense that people are still studying the candidates, or did most seem settled on who they'll vote for?

Well, so we were there ahead of the primary, right?

So, at that point, it seemed like people were sort of dividing themselves into, I want a more conservative candidate, or I want, you know, a candidate who is, well, maybe not more conservative.

I want a candidate who is, you know, willing to stand on conservative principles versus somebody who's, you know, willing to work with the other side.

And so that and we've seen since the primary, Republicans Ken McCarty and Sharon Jackson both withdraw and sort of and cast their support, to Jared Kercher.

so, you know, I, I think people are, you know, still trying to get a sense of, of who they might vote for.

But I think people, you know, have an idea.

one of the things that was interesting about that race is that, you know, Kelly Merrick, talks, you know, has a lot of very conservative values.

she is a very conservative candidate.

But, a lot of people that we, you know, some people that we spoke to see her working with a bipartisan majority as sort of betraying those conservative values, whereas Merrick sees it as I'm able to bring my conservative values into this conversation.

So I thought that was a very interesting dynamic in that race.

And I'll be very, very interested to see how that one.

All right.

Well, watch it play out.

And Liz, the US House race, it's tight now between incumbent Mary Tola and Republican challenger Nick baggage.

Did you hear anything from Alaskans you spoke with about what they want the next Alaska congressional member to really prioritize and focus on?

What surprised me in talking to regular Alaskans about this was that they are not, and plugged in as the people that we hear from regularly, daily.

and, a lot of folks had their impressions of the race still from two years ago.

a lot of people told me they, like Mary Todd, told us, you know, for what I categorizes her authentic ness, that that appealed to them.

they had not followed some of her more controversial votes as she pivots, to the right.

they they hadn't heard about that.

They were not concerned about that.

They mostly, you know, they liked her vibe and they were fine with that, or they didn't like that she was a Democrat and did not plan to vote for her.

interesting for the most part, where people focus more on national issues or on very local issues in their communities.

What do you find there?

It kind of depended on who we were talking to.

Right.

so like in in Valdez, for instance, we heard a lot about we heard a lot about these local issues about housing and child care.

And Homer, we heard a lot about fishing.

and, and I, you know, I sold on that.

We heard a lot about fishing.

but, you know, a lot of folks did seem like they were that they got their political news from national sources, and thus their priorities were sort of on national issues.

So this is that same thing, right?

Yeah.

There were folks who, knew some national issues.

from I, I took to asking people where they get their news, and that was always interesting.

But, there were a lot of people who gained their political insights from cable news networks.

And, sometimes when I'd say, how does that relate to you?

Here in Alaska, they often said, well, it doesn't.

It's not really an Alaska issue.

Some people had no local or regional concerns or and weren't following statewide races.

And I have to add as a caveat, it was summer.

You know, it it wasn't yet fall.

People's attention had not turned to the local races, perhaps.

And then my, just a quick final question here.

We're going to have to close out.

How will this inform your reporting going forward?

What what do you think the big takeaway was for both of you?

Well, for me, it was I have to say, the big takeaway was that, you know, people are complicated.

People have sometimes contradictory views.

and people care about, issues that are very close to them, but they also care.

They also have a lot of, stuff invested in, all right.

And issues that are not.

All right.

Liz, quickly.

Oh, you know, there's just nothing like seeing people on the ground in their hometowns.

All right.

Thank you so much As you heard this evening, Alaska Public media reporters are working hard to hear directly from Alaskans across the state about what they want.

Those running for state and national office to prioritize.

Alaska Public Media will host Debate for the State for the U.S. House race on Thursday evening, October 10th, and will have live election night coverage on Tuesday, November 5th, We hope you'll join us.

That's it for this edition of Alaska Insight, visit our website.

alaskapublic.org for breaking news and reports from our partner stations across the state.

I'm Lori Townsend, thanks for joining us.

Good night.