AK-Gov: Next year’s race for governor of Alaska may be the most unpredictable contest in America. While independent Gov. Bill Walker sounds likely to seek a second term, he hasn’t committed to it, and his team says he won’t make any announcements before the special legislative session ends in mid-June. And if Walker does run again, no one has any idea if he’d campaign as an independent again, or if he’d instead seek the GOP or Democratic nomination.
If Walker does seek a second term, his prospects are from clear even without factoring in his party affiliation. As we've mentioned before, Walker has spent his whole term fighting legislative Republicans who refuse to face up to Alaska's extraordinary budget crisis, brought on by falling oil prices. Walker has pushed for policies like reinstating the state income tax that are likely unpopular, but may be the only way to fix Alaska's budget. Alaska doesn’t get polled very often, so we don’t have a good sense for how voters are reacting to Walker.
According to the Alaska Dispatch News' Nathaniel Herz, there's plenty of speculation that Walker will run under a party banner… but it's anyone's guess which party banner. Walker was a longtime Republican who challenged GOP Gov. Sean Parnell in the 2010 primary and lost 50-33. Four years later, Walker ran against Parnell as an independent. Late in the race, Democratic nominee Byron Mallott dropped out of the race and became Walker’s running mate, making Walker the de facto Democratic candidate: The Walker-Mallott ticket ended up unseating Parnell 48-46. Mallott himself isn’t saying much about what the governor is planning, only Herz that the two are “very happy together,” and that “[w]hen the special session is over, we'll likely have an announcement of some kind.”
And if Walker does run again as an independent, it’s not clear if he could count on the same type of Democratic support he got in 2014. The state party recently changed their rules to allow an independent to run in the Democratic primary, and they’ve filed a lawsuit against the state to try and implement this change. The Alaska Democratic Party’s executive director says that they’re not sure how they’d work with Walker in a 2018 campaign if he decides to run as an independent again.
A few Republicans are considering running in what is usually a conservative state. State Sen. Mike Dunleavy, who represents the Anchorage suburb of Wasilla (aka Sarah Palin’s old stomping grounds) didn’t rule out a bid a few months ago, and he recently told Herz that he expects to decide in June. Dunleavy recently left the Republican caucus after he refused to support the state budget, which Dunleavy said didn’t have enough cuts.
Two new Republicans also tell Herz that they’re considering. Businessman Scott Hawkins, whose company works with mining and oil and gas companies, says he’ll spend the rest of 2017 exploring a bid. Hawkins has worked with a business-backed GOP super PAC called the Accountability Project, which just happens to be headquartered in the offices of Hawkins' company. Last year, the Accountability Project targeted two moderate Republican state House members in primaries largely over their support for an oil tax credit that was anathema to the oil industry, and also to stop them from joining a coalition with the Democratic state House minority. One of those targeted Republicans lost his primary, but state Rep. Paul Seaton survived and ended up forming that dreaded coalition with four other Republicans and the chamber's 17 Democrats.
GOP state Rep. Mike Chenault, who spent eight years as speaker before the Democratic-Republican alliance took control last year, also says he’s considering a run for governor. Chenault, who now serves as the chamber’s minority whip, didn’t provide much detail to Herz, just saying that he’s thinking about it but “not a lot right now because we're in session.”
A few other GOP names have also surfaced over the past few months. Back in February, the local blog Midnight Sun wrote that there was “a lot of chatter” that Loren Leman, who served as lieutenant governor from 2002 to 2006, was assembling a campaign, but we’ve heard nothing since then. In May, the conservative Must Read Alaska reported that state Senate President Pete Kelly was being encouraged to run, but there have been no new developments. Parnell also didn’t quite rule out a comeback bid about a month ago.
On the Democratic side, most of the speculation is revolving around ex-Sen. Mark Begich, a former Anchorage mayor. Begich narrowly lost re-election during the 2014 GOP wave, and he briefly considered running a write-in campaign against GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski last year. Begich hasn’t ruled out running for governor, and he didn’t rule anything out when he spoke to Herz.