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Southeast Alaska voters say state transportation, education and high cost of living are issues important to them in state primary elections
‘I believe that this is probably going to be one of the most important turning point primaries’
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Dionna Jackson, a Juneau resident originally from Kake, was encouraging other young voters to cast their ballots in the Alaska primary election on Tuesday afternoon.
“It doesn’t matter who you vote for as long as you use your right to vote,” she said at the Mendenhall Mall polling station. “Politics do affect you in your everyday life. It affects your wage, the cost of living here, it affects what’s going to happen in the future, what’s going to happen to your children.”
Alaskans voting in the primary are narrowing the races for governor, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, and the Alaska Legislature to a field of four candidates each in the Nov. 3 general election. A measure ending unlimited campaign donations was also on the ballot. Final unofficial primary results are expected Aug. 28. The results will be certified by Aug. 31.
Leaders emerged in early primary results on Tuesday night, as well as Ballot Measure 1, which prohibits donors in state-level elections from giving a candidate more than $2,000 per election and limits groups to $4,000 per candidate passing 72%-28% as of 11:58 p.m.
Jackson added it’s important for voters to educate themselves on candidates and ballot propositions before voting.
Winston Warr said he would like to see a new governor who supports education since his daughter is in high school.
“Teachers aren’t being paid enough and not supported enough,” he said.
After voting, Juneau resident Eric Harrell said his biggest concern at the moment is the control structure of government. The November midterms will determine control of Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.
“I personally believe that there’s a current overflow of corruption right now in our government, and I believe that this is probably going to be one of the most important turning point primaries that we’re probably going to see in our lifetime for a while,” he said, adding that’s why it was important for him to vote in the primary election.
Harrell said he feels the Trump administration is not paying attention to the people's interests, and the House of Representatives and Senate “are really the only people who can make changes with what’s going on right now.”
He said he’d like people in office who prioritize the “interests of people, not the interests of either things like super PACs or business interests.”
“That’s kind of the whole point of the government in the first place, is to care for the interests of the people,” he said. “I feel it’s important for all of us to come together and actually, one, figure out what it is that we all want. For example, I want to be able to see better conditions for lower-income families.”
He added that while data centers haven’t emerged in Alaska, he’s aware of politicians who support and oppose them in the future. Data centers are one issue of many in state primaries, which also took place in Florida and Wyoming on Tuesday.
Harrell said there are plenty of ways to make changes for people experiencing poverty, and the first step is to vote.
“The people you vote for is obviously going to have the biggest effect on that outside of coming together making community groups to purposely target those issues to try to fix it locally. But I'm also looking at the sort of bigger picture in all of it as well,” he said.
Harrell said he thinks a drastic change is needed and voting is the place to start. He said if an issue is happening in Juneau, it’s likely happening elsewhere in the state.
Virginia Oliver of Wrangell voted in Juneau on Tuesday while visiting the capital city. She said grocery prices are skyrocketing back home.
“The prices are sky high for food. Everything has to be shipped in because we’re on an island,” she said. “But mostly we’re just looking for representation that is conscientious of our needs and what is most important to us, and that is making a living, getting our food in, fuel, things like that.”
She said funding and maintaining a reliable state ferry system is another challenge that’s important to her.
“It's like a highway. It's the Alaska Marine Highway, and all these other highways they take care of, and they fix. But ours — it just comes to us less and less, and that's our way to get around,” Oliver said. “And then facing the airfares, they’re outrageous, outrageous. From here to where we live is $319, even if it's two weeks out. On the ferry, it would only be like $90, $92, or $118, which is manageable. But we have to go, so then we have to pay it.”
Oliver added she’d like state representatives who are willing to collaborate and work with Indigenous people.
“Our language is important to us, to have our representatives be conscientious of our language in the school system,” she said. “The language is in crisis, but we’re producing second-language speakers, and hopefully we can get more help with our representatives that would be supportive of what we want.”
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
