Author: Gracie

By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

An Anchorage doctor and his wife have put almost $1.3 million of their own money into his campaign for Alaska governor, an extraordinary act that puts him atop early fundraising totals in figures published this week by the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

With more than $1 million remaining in the bank after early spending, Republican candidate Matt Heilala stands out among a field of candidates that expanded to 17 this week with the entry of community organizer Meda DeWitt. 

State law requires political candidates to disclose their financial support on an irregular basis; the next report isn’t due until July, so this week’s figures represent an early look at who might be a competitive candidate. 

Campaign fundraising doesn’t guarantee success at the polls, experts say, but it can act like  gas in a car’s tank: Even a campaign with a high-powered engine can fall short if it doesn’t have enough gas in the tank. 

‘Zero chance’ of getting elected without money

“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” said Jim Lottsfeldt, an experienced Alaska campaign consultant. “I didn’t coin that phrase, but it is true. If you’re not raising sufficient money to float an organization, you have zero chance of getting elected.”

Lottsfeldt hasn’t signed a contract with any candidate in the race but was planning to personally host a fundraiser for Democratic candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. 

Former Alaska attorney general Treg Taylor, another Republican candidate, reported having more than $724,000 in his campaign accounts as of Feb. 1, the reporting deadline for the information published this week. He also made a significant contribution to his own campaign — records show a $250,000 donation from Taylor to his campaign.

Both he and Kreiss-Tomkins stood out from the field in terms of dollars available to spend: The only other candidates who reported having more than $226,201 available were Heilala and Democratic candidate and current state Sen. Matt Claman.

Kreiss-Tomkins said in a news release that his campaign had raised more than $750,000 since entering the race this month; because he entered the race after Feb. 1, those figures were not included in this week’s APOC reports. 

It also wasn’t clear how much of that total he has already spent. Several candidates reported that they had already spent much of the money they raised since starting their campaigns.

Republican businesswoman Bernadette Wilson has raised almost $306,000 since becoming the third candidate to enter the governor’s race, but she has spent more than two-thirds of that total. Similarly, former state Sen. Click Bishop has spent more than half of the $283,605 he reported raising since he started his campaign last summer.

Anchorage doctor seeks to fill a niche

Heilala, the self-funded candidate, spent more than any other candidate in the early going but still has the largest stockpile of campaign cash.

By phone on Wednesday, he said he hopes to fill a niche on the ballot.

“A lot of people claim they want a non-politician, non-bureaucrat, but how do you raise funds if nobody knows who you are?” he asked. 

He said he and his wife have “worked our tail off” in their lives and have enough financial freedom to afford their spending. 

He said that while he is a podiatrist, he also is “a fairly diverse business guy.”

“And that’s where my success has come from — investing and property developing and a lot of other things,” he said.

Self-funding the campaign to such a large degree means they can’t be swayed as much by donors, he said.

Heilala is a member of the state medical board but hasn’t served in public office before. At a candidate forum in Juneau, he praised President Donald Trump and said that he and his wife are golfing buddies with the president. 

That they’re willing to spend so much of their own money shows they’re serious about their campaign, he said.

“From this point forward, it will be a little easier to get larger donors,” he predicted. 

Matt Larkin is president of Dittman Research, which conducts polls and advises candidates in Alaska. Early fundraising figures can “serve sort of the same function as a primary” election, he said.

“When you have this many candidates … it’s really hard for donors to make a decision on who they’re going to support. And what you’ll typically see is donors will kind of support maybe multiple candidates at this stage in small amounts, but they’re really kind of waiting to see who emerges,” he said. “And so, this first fundraising update, I think will probably narrow the field some.”

Among well-known candidates, incumbent Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, a Republican, reported having just $4,880 in cash on hand, less than Matanuska-Susitna Borough Mayor Edna DeVries, another Republican candidate.

Former state Sen. Click Bishop reported $130,258 in cash on hand, putting him in the bottom half of candidates, but his list of donors was an unusually multipartisan list that included former state Sen. John Coghill, a conservative Republican from Nenana, and current state Sen. Jesse Kiehl, a progressive Democrat from Juneau, among others. 

Former state Rep. Joe Hayes, a Democrat, was a donor, as was Leslie Hajdukovich, a Republican who unsuccessfully challenged Hayes’ current employer — Democratic state Sen. Scott Kawasaki — in a 2024 Fairbanks Senate race. 

In Alaska, there are no limits on donations — for now

Alaska has no limits on the amount of money an individual can donate to a political campaign. The state’s prior limits were eliminated by the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals in 2021, and the state declined to appeal the decision.

The Alaska Legislature has not passed a bill to reimpose limits, but voters will be asked in August whether they want to approve a ballot measure that reimposes them. 

Those new limits would take effect after the November general election.

Several third-party groups registered with the public offices commission last month to support various candidates, but none have reported significant spending or donations.

In the 2022 race for governor, Republican Mike Dunleavy’s campaign spent more than $2 million. A supporting campaign backed by the Republican Governors Association, added almost $3 million in a parallel effort.

Independent Bill Walker’s campaign spent more than $2.4 million, and Democratic candidate Les Gara’s campaign spent almost $1.6 million. Republican Charlie Pierce, the fourth candidate, spent less than $150,000. 

Gara said that with early fundraising numbers, “you can get a sense for how hard somebody’s working, and I think that’s the most important thing.”

In general, Lottsfeldt said, “the reason you want this money is you need to spend it mostly when people are paying attention and are going to cast a ballot. And so that is really, mid-July through the third week in August.”

“Unfortunately for all the guys and women running for governor,” he said, “there’s this U.S. Senate iceberg floating in the middle of the channel.”

Lottsfeldt expects that the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan will take up most of the available TV and radio ad slots because those candidates will have more money and be able to outbid governor candidates. 

For that reason, he thinks a successful governor candidate will invest in things like yard signs, supporters going door-to-door, and other parts of a “field game.”

“It’s funny: Yard signs don’t win campaigns, but it is a marker of, ‘oh, that campaign is active. There’s people behind that. There’s enthusiasm. … Whether it’s a door stop, a yard sign, word of mouth, that is going to be huge when we have 16 people who are running.”

Even as Lottsfeldt talked, that number had already increased by one.

The deadline to sign up as a candidate is June 1. Candidates may drop out of the race as late as June 27. 

In Alaska, the top four finishers in the August primary, regardless of political affiliation, advance to the November general election, where voters use ranked choice voting to sort the candidates in order of preference and pick a winner.

Larkin, of Dittman Research, doesn’t have a contract with any candidate but has done polling on the governor’s race. While money is important, he said, “how you use that money is more important.”

“Increasingly, it’s the message that these candidates will go with will end up being the difference,” he said. “… I think the candidate with the best ideas is going to win this race, bottom line.”

By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

Alaska’s legally required campaign ad disclaimers do not violate the First Amendment, the state supreme court ruled Friday, deciding a six-year-old dispute between the Alaska Policy Forum and state campaign regulators.

Justice Dario Borghesan wrote the 61-page decision on behalf of the court, which ruled unanimously and upheld minor fines against APF that were issued by the Alaska Public Offices Commission five years ago.

At issue were a series of news releases, opinion pieces and a video embedded in the group’s website, all opposing ranked-choice voting. 

“We uphold the agency’s decision, concluding that the cited publications had to be reported and required a ‘paid for by’ disclosure,” Borghesan wrote. “We also hold that the statutory standards are not unconstitutionally vague because they give fair notice of what kind of speech must be reported and must contain a disclosure. And we conclude that the First Amendment challenges to these laws are unavailing.”

APF organized with a variety of groups across the country to produce the video embedded in its website, the opinion notes.

“APF did not just happen to find a video on the internet and share it on social media. APF engaged in discussions with organizations around the country to create a national coalition that developed or gathered content on ranked-choice voting and allowed APF to republish that content. Such efforts required significant time, and someone paid for that time. Alaskans have a genuine interest in knowing who,” the opinion states.

The case dates from 2020, when Alaskans voted to approve Ballot Measure 2.

That measure installed open primary elections, required disclosure of some political donations and installed ranked-choice voting in general elections. 

That system remains in place today but has been challenged by a new repeal initiative. A prior repeal effort failed in 2024.

In September 2020, Alaskans for Better Elections, a group that supports the current voting system, filed a complaint with the commission, stating that APF was violating state law because its statements on ranked-choice voting did not list their three top contributors, something required for campaign communications.

APF contended that its statements were about ranked-choice voting in general, not about Ballot Measure 2 in particular, because they didn’t specifically name the Alaska measure.

APOC commissioners disagreed and cited APF, requiring it to file disclosure forms but waiving fines. APF appealed to Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner, who ruled in the commission’s favor, finding that the commission “reasonably concluded that APF’s activities amounted to an express communication that was an exhortation to vote against (Ballot Measure 2).”

Pfiffner rejected technical arguments against the commission’s actions, the argument that state laws were improperly vague, the idea that the First Amendment gave APF a right to publish its material without a disclosure, and APF’s challenge to a state law that requires political groups to disclose contributions starting with the “first dollar” they spend.

Individuals are not subject to the same disclosure requirement. 

APF appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in September 2023 and ruled more than two years later.

In Friday’s order, Borghesan repeatedly refers to past rulings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which holds jurisdiction over Alaska. 

Relying on that precedent, the court concluded that given the context and language of APF’s communications, there was no other way to view them than as urging a particular vote in the 2020 campaign.

“In the context of an upcoming election in which ranked-choice voting is on the ballot,” Friday’s order states, a “video’s reference to a ‘push’ by ‘interest groups’ for ranked-choice voting and its call to ‘SAY NO TO RANKED CHOICE VOTING’ is a clear, albeit indirect, reference to voting against the Initiative.”

The Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“APF is disappointed by the decision,” said attorney Stacey Stone, who represented the group in court. “The ruling allows the state to treat protected educational speech about public policy as regulated campaign activity. That approach threatens to chill core First Amendment expression. We are reviewing the opinion carefully and evaluating our options.”

Attorney Scott Kendall represented Alaskans for Better Elections.

“Alaskans for Better Elections has been focused on campaign finance transparency since its founding. This victory affirms those values,” he said, explaining that the group is “very pleased with this outcome.”

Kendall noted that Alaskans have an interest in knowing who is funding ads in their elections.

“Hopefully, the Policy Forum will now comply with the law and disclose its donors, as it should have done years ago,” he said.