In the first part, presented in this post, I will attempt to draw a fairly detailed picture of the state's political geography and voting trends. In reality, the word "trends" might be a bit misleading, as the only trend is from Republican-to-Republican in many of the state's offices; but this area is still interesting, as will be seen. In Part II, I will go into a discussion of recent political history in Alaska. I will then move into the big contests this year: the Senate and the House race. I will discuss the longtime incumbents Stevens and Young, their politics, electoral histories, and current problems, with particular emphasis on the ethics scandals plaguing both of them. This will ease into a look at their challengers as well as their challenges generally: namely, who are Mark Begich (Stevens' opponent), Ethan Berkowtiz (the top Democratic nominee for the House seat) and Sean Parnell (the current Lt. Gov. running against Young in the primary), and how the existing ethics issues have impacted and will continue to effect the races up to the August primaries and the general elections in November. In Part III, in order to help gain some appropriate context on the uphill battles the Democrats face in winning these Federal races, I will look at some very key Alaska elections over the last 15 years. Specifically, I am interested in two races: the 2004 Alaska Senate race between Lisa Murkowski and Tony Knowles, and the 2006 Governor's contest between Sarah Palin and Knowles . While I will save my substantive discussion for when we get to Part III, I have chosen these races because of their recentness and the fact that they were two of the only close races in Alaska (for Senate, Congress and Governor) in a long time (though I am also interested in the 1990 and 1992 House races, and the 1994 governor's race). Because most Alaska outcomes are usually blowouts, focusing on actually close races is the best and perhaps only way to glean political lessons that can be applied to the current races, which promise, at least at this time, to be close. Finally, in the fourth and final part, I will conclude by teasing out how the lessons of the 2004, 2006 and other past races, as well as that from Alaska's broader electoral history, can help evaluate the Senate and House races this November, and whether those lessons can help the Democrats steal either seat.
A Big State. It is easy to forget or underestimate Alaska's sheer vastness. Its total area is over 650,000 square miles -- over 800 miles wide and nearly 1,500 miles across -- and its land area is 570,000 square miles It's combined coastline is greater than all of the coastlines of all of the states put together. The state is twice the size of Texas, and if imposed on the greater 48 states, it would stretch from Florida to southern California up to Michigan. Most of the state's 670,000 people are concentrated in three (large) areas: 61 percent live in and around Anchorage, the state capital, 13 percent lives in and around Fairbanks, the major city of the huge Alaska Interior, and 11 percents lives in the Panhandle (Juneau). Generally, however, the state is described as having five key segments:
--South Central Alaska. This region includes the Alaska Peninsula (which extends from the mainland up to the start of the Aleutian Islands chain), the Kenai Peninsula (includes Seward, Kenai, Homer, and Soldotna), Cook Inlet (most of the state's population surrounds the Inlet), and Prince William Sound (on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula and Southeast of Anchorage, it includes Valdez).
--The Alaska Panhandle. The Panhandle is the southeastern portion of the state, and it lies west of British Columbia. The Panhandle is mostly rural, extremely hard to access, and one can generally come in by boat or plane, and flying into it is also very difficult. It has a population of around 73,000 people, just over 40 percent of whom are in the state capital, Juneau. Sitka and Ketchikan are the other major hubs in this area. Proposals put before the people of Alaska to move the state capital from Juneau to closer to Anchorage were defeated in 1994 and again in 2002. This remains a big issue for people in Juneau, as moving the capital would cripple the city's economic livelihood.
--Southwest Alaska. This region includes the Aleutian Islands, Bristol Bay, Kodiak Island, and the Lake and Peninsula Borough.
--The Alaska Interior. The Interior covers the greatest part of the state, so it is mostly wilderness. Its central city (and only city, for that matter) is Fairbanks. It also includes North Pole.
--The Alaska Bush. The Bush is the northwestern part of the state that is mostly isolated from the rest of Alaska. It is made up of hundreds of small villages and towns, most notably Nome and Bethel. It is also the home of the northern most town in America, Barrow. (For more on Barrow, please check out these awesome articles.)
Alaska's state government is very unique. Because of its size, it does not have counties like other states, and instead is made up of 16 boroughs and one enormous unorganized borough which is made up of land that is not in any other borough. (Later, when we are going over the state's House and Senate districts, we will return to a discussion of the state's regions in the context of voting patterns.) So, unlike other states, there is an Alaska state government, and then these boroughs; there are no real town governments. It is important to note that Anchorage merged its city government with the greater area to form the Anchorage municipality, which is made up of the city and surrounding suburbs. Conversely, Fairbanks has a borough for the city and another for the surrounding areas.
Alaska has a fairly large number of veterans, and they make up over 16 percent of the population. The population actually rose nearly 15 percent from 1990 to 2000, but that was not nearly enough to give Alaska enough citizens to qualify for a second congressional seat. The only states with fewer people are Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota.
Alaskans are independent-minded Republicans. Made up of 680,000 people, Alaska has approximately 475,000 registered voters. Of those, 14 percent are registered Democrats, 25 percent are Republican, and the rest are unaffiliated. However, this break-down is very misleading, as the state veers heavily towards the Republican Party, particularly in Federal elections, but with many state offices as well. Ironically, when Congress was debating allowing Hawaii, and then Alaska into the Union, many believed that Hawaii would be a Republican state and Alaska a Democratic one; it turned out to be exactly the opposite.
Alaskans are, naturally, an independent-minded people, so the high number of unaffiliated voters makes a great deal of sense. By and large, a great many Alaskans hold libertarian leanings, supporting less Federal government intervention, plenary individual rights, and an unencumbered Second Amendment. Because the state depends on oil for its livelihood -- indeed, one of the reasons it was finally accepted into the Union was because of its oil -- there is great resentment among Alaskans that the Federal Government has kept the state locked up, hindering its ability to explore for new, valuable resources. This anger is still evident today with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, often referred to as the Alaska Lands Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by Jimmy Carter currently on the books. The law set aside about a third of the state as protected wilderness and thus unable to be tapped for development. Many in Alaska believe that the Federal Government, many people in the lower 48 states, and strong environmentalists would prefer to keep the state closed up as a living museum of sorts.
ANWR remains a thorn in the side of many Alaskans and its leaders. This view of resentment has been reinforced over the years also by Congress's refusal to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a rural region in the northeast corner of the state the size of Delaware, for oil exploration. Many argue that the area could have up to 16 billion barrels of oil, and Sen. Stevens and Rep. Young have been trying for decades to open it up. In the 1990s, Congress finally provided such approval, but it was vetoed by President Clinton. More recently, in 1995, Stevens successfully added ANWR drilling to the budget bill (which cannot be filibustered, and thus needs just 51 voters to pass in the Senate), but it was removed after objections from moderates in the House. Further attempts were filibustered.
This issue has caused great consternation to the Alaska delegation and to the people of the state, and Stevens and Young continue to try to push for opening ANWR. Stevens has called it the biggest issue on his mind day-to-day, and he even threatened to resign in frustration after he failed to open ANWR in 2005. Given that Stevens and Young were unable to open ANWR between 2005 and 2006, when Republicans controlled the White House, the House, and had a 10-seat majority in the Senate, it is not likely they will have a better opportunity in the near future. Therefore, it will probably continue to cause agitation in the state, particularly as ANWR drilling is still strongly opposed by most congressional Democrats and environmental boasters. This will not be helpful to future Democrats running in Alaska (particularly Begich and Berkowitz this year, which will be discussed in the next three posts). All of this is in great part why the Republican Party has been so successful in the state, and continues to be as long as ANWR drilling is blocked.
Alaska has been, and remains, an overwhelmingly Republican state. Alaska's Republican leanings can probably be best illustrated by its presidential voting. Just once in the young state's history has it delivered its three electoral votes to the Democratic candidate: in 1964 by a 66-34 margin, when President Johnson won a landslide victory over Sen. Barry Goldwater, losing only six states. In 1968, it was close in Alaska, with Richard Nixon defeating Hubert Humphrey in the state, 45-43. Other than those two elections, not only has Alaska always gone Republican, but it has done so by enormous margins nearly every time. President George W. Bush defeated Sen. John Kerry 61-36 in 2004, and Bush beat Gore 59-28. Prior to that, President Clinton lost the Last Frontier to Sen. Bob Dole 51-33, and lost to the first President Bush by a 40-30 split. George H.W. Bush beat Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis by a margin very similar to 2004, when he won 60-36, President Reagan won in Alaska 60-36 over Mondale and 54-26 over Carter in the aftermath of the Alaska Lands Act. President Ford beat Carter in 1976 in a 58-36 thrashing, and President Nixon beat George McGovern 58-35. Indeed, since 1968, no Democratic candidate for President has ever broken 36 percent, with four nominee hitting that number exactly, and a fifth one, McGovern, losing with 35 percent. Thirty-six percent thus appears to be the high-water for Democratic presidential nominees in the state.
AK-Gov. Other races have gone a bit better for Democrats, but not by much. The state has had four Democratic governors: William Egan, the first governor, and Bill Sheffield, Steve Cowper, and Tony Knowles. Of the four, only Egan and Knowles served more than one term. The last two governors, Frank Murkowski and Sarah Palin, have been Republicans. Most recently, Murkowski cruised to victory in 2002 after Knowles was term-limited from seeking a third term. In 2006, facing a backlash which I will get into with great detail later, Murkowski was ousted by Palin in the 2006 GOP gubernatorial primary, and Palin beat Knowles (who was seeking a legal, non-consecutive third term) by a healthy 48-41 margin.
Things have been much bleaker for the Democrats in the congressional delegation.
AK-Sen. Alaska's first two Senators, Bob Bartlett and Ernest Gruening were actually Democrats. Bartlett, often seen as one of the fathers of Alaska, died suddenly in 1968, and the Republican Gov. Walter Hickell appointed Ted Stevens to his seat, which he has held since then. Gruening served from 1959 until he was defeated in a Democratic primary in 1968 by Mike Gravel, who served two terms until he was beaten in 1980 by Frank Murkowski, a Republican. Murkowski served until 2003 when he was elected governor of Alaska. He appointed his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, a Republican and then-state representative, to take his seat. She currently sits in the Senate as Alaska's junior Senator. In his time in the Senate, Stevens has never faced a credible challenge, where conversely, Murkowski survived his first election by beating Knowles by a close 49-46 margin. This latter race will be critical to our analysis later, so stay tuned.
AK-AL. Finally, the At-Large congressional has been occupied by Democrats, but not at all recently. The first congressman was Ralph Julian Rivers, a Democrat who had been mayor of Fairbanks and one of the heads of the famous Alaska Constitutional Convention which was held in the mid-1950s to advocate for statehood. Rivers served from 1959 until 1966 when he defeated by Republican Howard Wallace Pollock. Pollock served until 1970 when he ran for governor. The seat was then taken by Democratic State Sen. Nick Begich. Begich served until 1972, when his plane disappeared en route to Juneau (recall those treacherous mountains I mentioned I earlier). Interestingly, even though he was presumed dead, Begich's name remained on the ballot, and he handily defeated State Sen. Don Young. The seat was ultimately filled the next year in a special election won by Young, who has held the seat ever since.
In sum, therefore, while Democrats tasted some early success in winning the bigger Alaska offices, only one Democrat -- Tony Knowles -- has been elected governor since 1986 (and, as I will discuss in the Part II, he barely won and because of unusual circumstances), no Democrat has been elected to represent Alaska in the Senate since Mike Gravel was re-elected in 1974, and no Democrat has sat in Alaska's seat in the House of Representatives since Nick Begich won his first race in 1970 (I am not counting his posthumous re-election). Young has been re-elected 17 times since then, and has only rarely faced a tough race, such as in 1990 and 1992, when the Democratic mayor of Valdez held him to 52 and 47 percent in his wins. In 2006, an unknown, under-funded Democrat held Young to a surprising 57-40 victory, spurring questions whether this current term would be his final one in office. Again, stay tuned on what the future could hold for Don Young.
The Alaska State House and Senate. Currently, Alaska's state government is a bit more closely divided. The State House, which has 40 members, each serving two-year terms, is currently made up of 23 Republicans and 17 Democrats, and the State Senate, with 20 members, each serving four-year terms, is split between 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats. While half of the State Senate's members come up every two years, making it possible that the Democrats can gain a majority of the senate in November, because of an unusual situation it is unclear what would occur even if this happened. This year, six Republicans and four Democrats face the voters, but at the end of 2006, shortly after the Democrats gained one new senate seat, all nine of the Democratic senate caucus joined in a power-sharing coalition with six Republicans, allowing several of the GOP members in the coalition to seat the President of the the Senate, but also letting the Democrats control the Majority Leader position and several key Senate committees. So, it is conceivable that the Democrats could retake the State Senate and dissolve the coalition, but this is not clear what will occur. Nor is it likely that the Democrats will retake the State House. Still, the basic point one could take is that Democrats have a fairly strong position in the state legislature, and have been making gains in recent years. Whether this will translate to greater success in the bigger offices of governor, lt. governor, and the federal seats is very cloudy.
Future Democratic prospects. While I am here, let's take a quick look at the nine Democrats in the State Senate to see if there are any prospects for higher office. Keep in mind, I am not an expert on Alaska state legislators, but it is probably valuable to mine for people who could fill a Democratic bench for the future. Unfortunately, we can chop off several names right off the bat. Sens. Kim Elton (Juneau), Albert Kookesh (Angoon), Joe Thomas (Fairbanks), Bettye Davis (Anchorage), and Lyman Hoffman (Bethel) are probably too old to run for higher office, with Stevens' seat not coming up again until 2014, win or lose, and with Ethan Berkowitz currently running for the At-Large seat, as they are 60, 59, 59, 70, and 58 years old, respectively. Arguably the best statewide prospect for the Democrats in the Senate in Sen. John Ellis (Anchorage), the Senate Majority Leader, and a longtime state legislator. He is 48 years old. At least as age goes, Sens. Bill Wielechowski (40 years old) and Hollis French (49), both of Anchorage, could be strong future nominees, and it helps that they are from Anchorage, the population hub of the state. Sen. Donald Olson is only 48, but it is unclear if a Nome senator could be an effective statewide candidate.
It is fair to say that the State Senate Democratic caucus is a bit old. I will not bore you to death by going through the Democratic caucus in the State House (nine of the 17 members are over 55 years of age, but there are several younger legislators); needless to say that while Democratic prospects at the state level have improved, they are not exactly ideal and at least to me, the party's future in contending for U.S. House and Senate seats might be bumpy. I readily concede that many members of the Alaska House and Senate Republican caucuses are aged, but given the state's historic and current political bent, they can probably survive age issues within its state legislative caucuses better than the Democrats who must reach out and build a political farm team if they are to finally win the big electoral prizes in Alaska.
Conclusion. In going through the past and present political situation in Alaska, I have hopefully drawn a somewhat useful picture. In particular, what should be most salient is the Republicans' continued dominance, and the Democrats' difficulties in breaking through. One basic problem, aside of course from the fact that the state's voters lean much closer to the hands-off libertarian philosophy of the national Republican Party than a national Democratic Party where environmentalists hold great sway, is that unlike many other states, there is little room to develop young leaders and move them up the ladder. In Alaska, where there are few offices -- besides the House and Senate seats, only the Governor and Lt. Governor are elected statewide -- and a small state legislature, discovering and establishing young political talent is tough. It is made even tougher by the fact that two-thirds of the state's congressional delegation has been unchanged since 1973, and the entire delegation was astonishingly the same from 1981 until 2003 -- very well a national record (though I am not certain of this). As a result, the minority party, the Alaska Democrats, have had fewer opportunities to build and advance. The emergence of Mark Begich, the current mayor of Anchorage, and Ethan Berkowitz, the former Democratic State House Minority Leader, as candidates for Senate and House show that at the very least, Democrats are beginning to make strides towards some semblance of political parity in the Last Frontier. Should either or both of them win in November, than this will be clear; and even if they both go on to lose, there is no question that both are strong nominees, much stronger in numerous respects than Democratic nominees have been for the House and Senate in Alaska in decades.
At this point, we have reached the precipice of Part II. Yet, rather than start on Begich and Berkowitz, I am going to begin the next part with the stories of Ted Stevens and Don Young.
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