Two pivotal East Anchorage races could determine control of Alaska House

In East Anchorage, there are two races for the Alaska House of Representatives that feature two candidates -- a Democrat and a Republican -- and no incumbents. Both were relatively close in the August primary. And both could determine which caucus controls the House when the legislative session begins in January in Juneau.

In House District 21, which covers South Muldoon and Nunaka Valley, Democratic civil and environmental engineer Donna Mears faces Republican Forrest Wolfe, a legislative aide and commercial fisherman who has also worked in the tourism and service industries.

In the primary, Mears received 43 more votes than Wolfe, less than 1% of those cast. A third candidate, nonpartisan Ian Sharrock, withdrew after the primary.

In House District 22, which includes North Muldoon and Russian Jack, Democratic planner Ted Eischeid faces Republican city official Stanley Wright.

Eischeid received more votes than Wright in the primary, but the combined total of Wright and fellow Republican Lisa Simpson -- who has since dropped out -- exceeded Eischeid’s.

Both races have drawn campaign contributions and attention as the two caucuses attempt to gain an upper hand in organizing a majority. The chamber has been closely divided in each of the last two legislatures, and it took weeks into the session for a multiparty, mostly Democratic majority to form in both 2019 and 2021.

House District 21

Mears said she has been involved in advocacy since she moved to the state in 1997, “and wanted a job in recycling. And it didn’t exist.”

She later worked with a group of parents to advocate for the construction of the Winterberry Charter School building.

But it was her work with the Northeast Community Council that led her to run for the Legislature. She was concerned when the Alaska Redistricting Board originally paired her district in a Senate district with Eagle River -- she said the politically mixed area would lose its voice when paired with a much more conservative district.

“I got very fired up,” she said.

She said she looks at issues this way: “I want a future for my kids in Alaska.”

For Mears, that means addressing everything from social services to homelessness and larger Permanent Fund dividends to help residents afford rising housing costs.

Along with her support for PFDs, she opposes large cuts to state services. As the Legislature faces a long-term deficit, she said changes that would lead to oil companies paying more in taxes need to be part of the equation.

She cites her background as a civil engineer, “literally building Alaska for the last 25 years,” as a reason for people to vote for her, adding that she knows what it takes to implement building projects.

“Part of being an engineer is how you approach and solve problems, and I’ve got a lot of real-world experience doing that in a lot of situations in Alaska,” she said.

She’d like to increase state support for public education. She says the schools should be measured more by how well they prepare students to solve problems than just by test scores.

Mears raised more than $100,000 in her campaign through Wednesday, with $20,000 of that coming from outgoing Democratic Rep. Liz Snyder, who represents an area that, after redistricting, includes 94% of the new district. Snyder’s experience shows how closely divided the area is: In 2020, she won by 11 votes over former Republican Minority Leader Lance Pruitt, who had defeated Snyder by 181 votes two years earlier.

Labor unions and Democratic party groups have also made significant donations to Mears’ campaign.

While Mears would be new to Juneau, her opponent Forrest Wolfe is very familiar with the city. He grew up there and has been a legislative aide in the Capitol for a decade, working for politicians from both parties, most recently for Republican Rep. Tom McKay. Among his previous employers were Republicans Rep. Mel Gillis, Sen. Josh Revak, Rep. Steve Thompson, Sen. Lesil McGuire, Rep. Bob Lynn and Democratic Rep. Dean Westlake.

In that time, Wolfe has built relationships on both sides of the aisle, which he said has prepared him to be an effective advocate for the district, where he moved from Juneau in late 2019.

“I just thought it was time for me to put my name forward and take my state service to the next level,” Wolfe said.

Wolfe said his experience with lawmakers from widely different geographic areas, both parties and both chambers, as well as in majority and minority caucuses, would give him a unique perspective for a first-year legislator.

“I’m not the guy looking for where the bathroom is,” he said. “I know the process. I’ve carried legislation before that’s become law.”

He said residents have defined public safety as the No. 1 issue, and he said the Legislature can do more to increase public safety and reduce crime. He pointed to his experience working on legislation to repeal the 2016 law known as Senate Bill 91 that reduced jail time for those charged and convicted of crimes.

He also wants to work on growing the economy.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that resource development is the economic backbone of our state and I’d like to, you know, get more oil in the pipeline,” Wolfe said. He also supports increased mining and a revival of the timber industry. Noting his experience waiting tables in Juneau, he said he knows the importance of tourism to small businesses and he wants to grow that industry as well.

He said he wants the state to have the largest PFD it can afford. He said there is room for some more cuts to state spending and more revenue from higher oil production, adding that he opposes new taxes and deeper draws from the Permanent Fund.

While Wolfe didn’t trail Mears by many votes in the primary, he is trailing by a wider margin in campaign fundraising. He’s raised just over $39,000 through Oct. 29 – less than half of Mears’ total. His largest donors include major Republican contributor Bob Penney and GCI leader Ron Duncan, as well as the Alaska Chamber and Republican energy-industry groups.

House District 22

The district Mears and Wolfe are seeking to represent was changed little by redistricting, but the neighboring district that Ted Eischeid and Stanley Wright are vying for is new, drawing roughly half from those represented by Republican Rep. David Nelson, who’s running in a different district, and Democratic Rep. Ivy Spohnholz, who didn’t run for reelection. Packed with residential neighborhoods south of the Glenn Highway, it’s one of the state’s smallest districts.

Eischeid works as a planner for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, but most of his adult life has been spent as a teacher. He and his wife Hedy decided to move to Alaska after Wisconsin’s public employee unions were “eviscerated” in 2010 and 2011. Hedy Eischeid got a job with the National Education Association-Alaska in 2012 and they spent summers together until Ted Eischeid moved up in 2016, after retiring after 25 years of teaching and finishing two terms on a county board of supervisors.

Education is a top priority: “I see education as a key for people to have a better life.”

He said education has become politicized nationally, and his goal is for teachers to be able to do their jobs without distraction.

His other high priorities are public safety and infrastructure. Working as a planner in Palmer has increased his awareness of the importance of infrastructure, and he’s a strong supporter of the Port of Alaska in Anchorage.

“Create a stable foundation and good things will follow,” he said.

He said he would seek to balance the budget, with PFDs being half of the annual draw from the Permanent Fund. Like Mears, Eischeid said he’d look to oil taxes as part of a balanced plan, and he opposes large spending cuts or deeper draws from the Permanent Fund.

While he answered a Beacon questionnaire in the summer by saying he wouldn’t join a caucus led by Republicans, he said he isn’t so sure now, saying different groups can work together to solve problems and that people are tired of divided politics.

Eischeid pointed to the shared desire to increase salmon runs as a potential area for cross-party cooperation. “Fish getting up to the Mat-Su also means fish getting to our streams right here, and to the Kenai River,” he said.

Eischeid raised $80,000 through Wednesday, compared with $32,000 Wright has reported raising.

Eischeid drew a distinction between how he and Wright have campaigned, saying that he’s participated in community meetings and candidate questionnaires that Wright hasn’t.

“That platitude: The first step in effective leadership is to show up,” Eischeid said. “I’ve been trying to show up. I think that makes me a better candidate.”

Wright is the community systems manager in Anchorage’s Community Safety and Development office. He said he was drawn to run by East Anchorage residents’ frustration that they felt their voices weren’t being heard in the Legislature.

“It seems like legislators get to Juneau and they forget that they work for all these folks that vote them into office,” he said.

He said the state of the economy and high gas prices are top issues, and he said paying a full Permanent Fund dividend would help Alaskans with them.

Wright said he would start any effort to balance the budget with cuts. But he said he wants spending reductions that won’t hurt state services.

He gave as an example eliminating unfilled state positions. This is similar to a position Gov. Mike Dunleavy took in 2018 when he talked about cuts that would close a budget gap. But the fact that there are unfilled positions is already accounted for in the budget, which means that there aren’t additional savings in that area. And legislators have said that if there were efficiencies to be found in the budget, they would have been identified by the state in the eight years since oil prices fell.

When asked what he would do with the budget other than find “efficiencies,” Wright said he did not put forward specific ideas and said he needed more information.

“I can’t say 100% exactly what I would do today,” he said, adding that once he met more legislators, “we’ll figure out a way to do this.

“I mean, there’s always an option. There’s always an opportunity to get things done. I’ve been the guy who has made things happen with very little.”

Wright said he’s done that his entire life, beginning with growing up on a farm in South Carolina where his family hunted and slaughtered hogs. They then moved to a housing project in South Carolina.

“It was pretty rough and we had nothing,” he said, adding that the experience taught him that public assistance is needed.

He said voters should choose him because he’s always been dedicated to public service, including serving in the Navy, where he was a combat veteran in Iraq.

Wright moved to the state in 2006 with his wife Shayne, who was born and raised in Alaska.

Wright said that as a House member, he would draw on his experience as the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs’ liaison with the Legislature.

“You just got to find the common ground and the common good,” he said. But he also said he supports legislators fighting for their communities and engaging in spirited debate.

While Wright works for the city, he distanced himself from criticism of Mayor Dave Bronson’s handling of homelessness. He said Eischeid has falsely accused him of being involved in the policy. Lawyers for Wright sent Eischeid a cease-and-desist letter telling him to stop making false statements about Wright’s role on homelessness.

Wright said his role was limited to working with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on administering grants. “I have nothing to do with homelessness other than being a compliance officer,” he said.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.