Alaska’s Lt. Gov resigned this afternoon with some vague language about “inappropriate language” and then “described the remarks as inappropriate overtures to a woman earlier this week.”
Some background here. In 2014, Bill Walker ran for governor as an Independent. In a previous run, he’d lost in the Republican primary. So the 2014 governor’s race included Walker, Republican Sean Parnell (who assumed office when Sarah Palin quit), and Byron Mallott, the Democratic candidate. In a surprise announcement during the campaign, Walker and Mallott announced they were joining forces — Walker for Governor and Mallott for Lt. Governor. The polls showed that if the both ran separately, they’d split the vote and Parnell would be reelected. And in November they won the election.
This year, Walker announced they were running again. The Republican candidate, Mike Dunleavy, is a former Republican state senator who resigned before his term was up. He’s been heavily funded by his brother who lives out of state. I’d note that Dunleavy generated a lot of opposition in a special session in 2015 when he tried to gut a bill to require appropriate K-12 education in schools on avoiding and reporting child molesters.
This year, Walker said he’d run as an Independent in the Democratic primary. But he never filled out the paperwork. Just hours before the deadline, former Anchorage mayor (he’s also former Democratic US Senator) Mark Begich filed paperwork to run. This upset lots of folks who immediately believed that Begich’s move would throw the election to Dunleavy.
In July, Tom Begich, Mark’s brother, and a state Senator explained that their polling showed that Walker would lose in a two person race, so this was the only way to save the election.
Tom Begich was sure that by the primary, the two candidates would get together and the one with the lowest polling data would drop out. The primaries came and went. No one dropped out.
Walker, who’d never been elected to public office before, was an attorney who said he ran for one main purpose — to get a natural gas pipeline built. That’s been his main focus. And trying to balance the budget in the face of low oil prices and a Republican senate that won’t consider any sort of taxes. He’s made major cuts and stepped on the third wire of Alaskan politics — he used money from the Alaska Permanent Fund, that was supposed to go to Alaskans’ dividend checks, to help balance the budget.
Last night there was a debate at the University of Alaska Anchorage focused on the Permanent Fund and the budget. Begich and Walker and the Libertarian candidate were there, but not Dunleavy.
Back to today’s events. The announcement came this afternoon, three weeks or so before the election. There are lots of opinions flying around FaceBook and Twitter. Here are two posts that seem to know something and are consistent:
From Facebook:
Kate Laird: This is the most interesting bit: Asked whether Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Begich could replace Mallott on the lieutenant governor ticket, akin to the formation of the 2014 “unity ticket” between Mallott and Walker, Heckendorn [Walker's campaign manager] said, “We have been in conversations with Begich about the best way to move forward for Alaska, and those conversations will continue. We’ve been in conversations before we had any idea of what had happened with Byron. We’ve been in conversations with Begich for a few days about how to move forward in a way that’s best for Alaska.”
And this Tweet from Anchorage Daily News Reporter Nat Herz:
So, a race that seemed to be headed toward a Republican victory — and still may be — is having some interesting twists and turns. Stay tuned. Here’s a link to the Anchorage Daily News story on this which they are constantly updating.