How campaigns show they don’t respect the voters

"I voted" stickers at the Alaska Division of Elections office in Juneau on June 12, 2026. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)

By Rich Moniak

Back in June, Sen. Dan Sullivan’s campaign accused Mary Peltola and D.C. Democrats of recruiting Dan. J. Sullivan of Petersburg to run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate. She “can’t win this race on the issues,” they claimed, “so they’ve resorted to dirty, dishonest tactics [for] the sole purpose of deceiving voters and manipulating Alaska’s election system.” 

And while Peltola and Dan J. Sullivan both deny the allegation, other Republicans have used his candidacy to supplement their arguments that Alaska’s Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) confuses the voters. Those are equally disingenuous. 

Let’s start with the 2024 race for Alaska’s lone seat in the House of Representatives which was won by Rep. Nick Begich III. 

In a Juneau Empire opinion last month, Win Gruening argued RCV in that election “gave us the choice of a New York Democrat who was serving a 20-year federal prison term. The convicted felon cruised through the RCV Primary and was one of four candidates on the November ballot.”

Eric Hanfer was in prison. But that’s the only accurate part of Gruening’s statement. Hafner finished sixth in the open primary with a meager 0.43% of the vote. He only advanced to the RCV general election after two Republicans dropped out. 

Peltola was the incumbent running for reelection. She won 50.9% of the primary votes. Nick Begich III finished second with 26.6%, Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom was third with 19.9%, and Republican Matthew Salisbury rounded out the top four with only 0.6%.

In a scheme to “self-impose a primary among the Republicans,” Begich had pledged to drop out if he finished third. After he beat Dahlstrom, a Republican grassroots campaign convinced her to withdraw. Only after Salisbury’s decision to leave the race—Begich played a role in that too—did Hafner qualify to be on the general election ballot.

In a lawsuit seeking to have Hafner disqualified, Democrats argued he didn’t meet the U.S. Constitution’s residency clause for U.S. House candidates. When the case went before Alaska’s Supreme Court, the Republican Party intervened to keep him on the ballot in hopes he would siphon off some votes from Peltola. 

Even though Hafner is still in prison, he filed again to run for the House again this year. And groups supporting Sen. Sullivan are trying to confuse voters further by promoting two other perennial fringe candidates as progressive alternatives to Peltola. One of them is Hafner’s mother. 

Fair Deal Alaska, an independent Super PAC that registered with the Federal Election Commission late last month, began sending out thousands of mailers on behalf of Carol Hafner and Arizona resident Richard Grayson. Neither has even lived in Alaska.

You can’t blame RCV for the reason Carol Hafner filed to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Alaska in 2018. Or when she ran for the House in Wyoming in 2020 despite not living there either. And the fact Grayson is also on the ballot for Arizona House District 7 this year is proof his Alaska campaign is a sham.

But Democrats play this game too. Right for Alaska is sending out mailers promoting Alaska resident Gerald Heikes as a Republican alternative to Sen. Sullivan. Every year since 2014, Heikes ran for either governor or the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Campaigns that respect voters would denounce such tactics and focus on real problems. Such as the high energy costs caused by the war President Donald Trump started with Iran. And the inflationary pressures of the tariffs he continues to impose on countries around the world. 

Both have undermined America’s international alliances which helped sustain our leadership in the world. When Trump met Putin in Anchorage last summer, Sen. Sullivan bragged about them being “one of the great sources of American power.” He should explain to voters why he thinks those alliances aren’t important anymore.  

He should also explain why he voted to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General last week. 

At this point though, no one should expect Sen. Sullivan, the Republican Party or his cheerleaders to honestly defend his record on these issues. 

But by not challenging him on them, Peltola isn’t telling voters how she’ll do anything different if elected. 

And if Alaska’s major news organizations let both candidates get away with avoiding these issues, they’ll be adding to the confusion being sown by the unethical Super PACs funded with money from outside. 

• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.