Five years ago, Matt Salisbury moved to Alaska. Now, the 30-year-old insurance adjuster and moderate Republican is in position to finish among the final four candidates in the race for the state’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As of Thursday evening, Salisbury had 602 votes in Alaska’s primary election, well behind incumbent Democrat Mary Peltola, with 48,590 votes; Republican challenger Nick Begich, with 26,002; and Nancy Dahlstrom, 19,256.
RELATED: Nancy Dahlstrom drops out of Alaska’s U.S. House race
Under Alaska’s election system, that vote differential doesn’t matter: the top four candidates in the primary election advance to November’s general election.
Thousands of absentee and questioned ballots have yet to be counted, but for the moment, Salisbury is in the No. 4 spot, 55 votes ahead of John Wayne Howe, head of the Alaskan Independence Party.
“I don’t know if I would say I was expecting it,” Salisbury said when reached by phone on Thursday morning. “I believed that I would be (in the top four), but I went in with no expectations.”
Salisbury has identified as Republican since he was 18, he said, and he holds to the traditional Republican Party belief that individual liberty is the best approach to government.
But he also brings a twist to that idea: Individual liberty isn’t possible, he said, without financial liberty. That requires constraining the big businesses that might squash free enterprise.
“It’s no longer free to engage in an enterprise if it’s just held by a few corporations,” he said.
The pending merger of Kroger and Albertsons, two Alaska-based grocery stores, concerns him because it could limit competition and result in higher prices here.
“To truly be a free society, we have to make sure that it’s a fair playing field,” he said.
When Salisbury thinks of great Republicans, he thinks of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, he said.
“At the later point in his career, (Roosevelt) wanted to battle corporations on behalf of the people, and he split from the ticket when the party didn’t want to embrace that change, and I’m not willing to split from the Republican ticket,” Salisbury said.
He said he sees a lot of people use the term RINO, or “Republican in Name Only” for Republicans who don’t follow the party line exactly.
“I want to say I’m not a RINO. I’m a bull moose,” Salisbury said.
Roosevelt ran on the “Bull Moose Party” ticket in 1912, and Salisbury’s website, jointhemoose.com, features a computer-generated picture of Roosevelt riding a bull moose.
Salisbury’s simple three-item platform is aligned with his beliefs: end bottom trawling, properly fund Social Security, and end corporate ownership of single-family homes.
Born in Atlanta in 1993, Salisbury grew up in that city and attended the University of Georgia, majoring in economics.
During that time, wrote a thesis about Alaska’s fishing industry and concluded that the best way to help Alaska’s family fishers and the declining salmon returns is to eliminate bottom trawling and the bycatch that comes with it.
Salisbury supported Peltola two years ago, he said, but he was inspired to run as a candidate this year because he was frustrated with legislation she introduced in May.
Peltola has run as a “pro-fish” candidate, but Salisbury said her approach to trawling isn’t substantial.
He said he doesn’t feel adequately represented by Dahlstrom, who “was picked by the Republican establishment, which I think is just as swampy as everyone else.”
He also doesn’t feel represented by Nick Begich, who comes from a longtime Alaska political family and is personally wealthy.
“He comes from a place of privilege, and how can somebody like that relate to me and the struggle that everyday Alaskans face? I mean, I’m talking to you on my lunch break,” Salisbury said by phone.
The former Georgian arrived in Alaska for the first time in December 2014 after becoming infatuated with stories, movies and other media about the state, including the example of Dick Proenneke.
Salisbury’s arrival in Alaska was unforgettable, he said. “It was my first white Christmas ever.”
He spent the winter in the state, but a family tragedy meant he had to move away.
“But the bug never left,” he said, “and on a hot summer day — 95 degrees — I made the decision that it’s now time to go back to Alaska.”
He returned in 2019, driving 12 days across the United States with his dog, and he’s spent the time since then as an insurance adjuster, traveling across the state.
“It’s been an absolute blessing to be able to go through the Kenai Peninsula, up through the Interior to the Western communities and down to Southeast,” he said.
He bought a starter home in the Matanuska Valley, close to Finger Lakes, and got involved with local groups, including the Elks.
“I love fishing — I’m not very good at catching, though. … There’s something about the fight and then landing one that just really gives you that adrenaline rush. I love hiking and I love live music,” he said.
Reggae is his “bread and butter,” he said, but he likes almost everything.
“You’ll catch me dancing to ‘September’ by Earth, Wind and Fire; Kendrick Lamar; “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan … I just have a very wide taste in what I like,” he said.
Salisbury’s time in Alaska hasn’t been entirely smooth. In 2022, after a “phenomenal first date” in Homer, he was pulled over by police for speeding and charged with drunken driving and possessing a weapon while intoxicated.
“It’s shameful, and I’m not proud of it, but it was a mistake that I made, and I own it,” he said. “I did my punishment, and I’ve got my license back.”
After he sold his starter home in the Mat-Su, Salisbury found it difficult to afford a new house, and even rent was expensive. That experience caused him to oppose corporate homeownership as a way to drive down rent and housing costs.
“I really think that owning property is a way to financial freedom, and I have concerns that we are being pushed into a place where renters are being reduced down to numbers instead of people,” he said.
Salisbury said he’s concerned that the federal government is willing to authorize spending increases for wars, including in the Middle East and Ukraine, but is reluctant to pay for services given to Americans, including Social Security.
“I have a hard time driving through Anchorage and watching people live in tents and go hungry and struggle with mental illness and addiction, and we have no resources for these people,” he said.
When it comes to the presidential race, Salisbury said he isn’t endorsing or backing either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
He said he thinks it’s important to have the ability to work with people, even if he doesn’t agree with them.
“Those are still Americans, they’re still our neighbors, and we can be respectful when we disagree, and we can work together through problems to make an amiable solution for everybody,” he said.
In his own words
Salisbury answered the Alaska Beacon’s 15-question candidate survey this week. You can read his responses alongside those of the other U.S. House candidates online.
He’s also answered Ballotpedia’s candidate connection survey. See here to read more about his background, including how Sept. 11, 2001, was his first political memory.
