In three days, Alaska’s top two U.S. House candidates traveled more than 1,000 miles and appeared on stage in three high-stakes debates on the state’s most pressing federal issues.
It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, they said.
“It’s been very busy in terms of the media attention,” said Republican candidate Nick Begich after a Thursday debate in Fairbanks, “but it’s not any busier than a regular day on the campaign.”
Begich is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, and the two leading candidates traveled in quick succession from Anchorage to Kodiak, then to Fairbanks, and back to Anchorage.
In the Lower 48, it’s the distance between St. Louis and Boston.
The general election campaign is expected to include six forums or debates that put the two leading candidates on the same stage, simultaneously. Three of those events were this week, with two on Thursday.
“When the debates are over and the cameras are off, I’m going to Kenai the next day and Juneau the day after that. So we don’t stop,” Begich said.
Travel pushes in Bush Alaska can be even more challenging than the hectic debate week, Peltola said.
“We’ll have 10 consecutive days, traveling to like nine places,” she said.
On a recent campaign swing, she flew to Fairbanks, then Kotzebue, on to Nome, then back to Fairbanks, then drove to Nenana, all in the span of a few days.
Is it tougher mentally, or physically?
“If you’re doing a nine-day trip, and you’re traveling every day and being ‘on’ all day long for every event, and weather – you never get a private space – that’s physical,” she said.
“That’s the thing. I mean, a lot of my colleagues, the women, just say, ‘Well, how much have you lost? How much have you lost?’ Like, how many sizes have you gone down because you can’t (eat)? I think besides a surprise divorce, campaigning is the best way to lose weight, because you’re just on nerves and fumes.”
Starting in Kodiak
Both candidates arrived in Kodiak on Monday, then spent part of that day and Tuesday morning meeting with supporters, visiting local businesses, taking calls and doing campaign work.
On Tuesday night was a two-hour fisheries debate — double the length of a normal campaign debate — hosted by the local chamber of commerce.
Also in attendance was John Wayne Howe, an Alaskan Independence Party candidate who flew from Fairbanks to participate. The fourth candidate on the ballot, Democrat Eric Hafner, is in prison, serving a 20-year sentence, and isn’t participating in debates.
Much of the event was devoted to a technical discussion about fisheries, but in its last quarter, Begich voiced anger at Peltola about ads claiming that if Begich were elected, Alaskans wouldn’t have fish to eat.
“It’s frustrating to me when people are putting things out suggesting that somehow Alaska wouldn’t have fish because I get elected, that’s absolutely wrong, and everyone knows that and she knows that,” he said.
On to Fairbanks
Two days later, at a debate hosted by the Alaska Chamber of Commerce in Fairbanks, Peltola when on the rhetorical attack first, questioning Begich’s ties to the House’s hardline conservative Freedom Caucus.
It was a switch from Kodiak, when Peltola said she was there to talk about fish, not attack other candidates.
“I was surprised at the attacks on me in Kodiak, because the format that we had been presented did not allow for that,” Peltola said. “At this one, out of the gate, they … wanted to start the forum with three questions back and forth to each other, and after seeing the way that he was offensive, it made me realize I have to be prepared for attacks. I can’t keep taking these sitting down. I have to punch back.”
Immediately after the debate, both headed to the airport for a quick turnaround. They had another debate scheduled just five hours later, in Anchorage, 260 miles away.
The rapid switch was the result of scheduling happenstance — Begich had RSVP’d for the Fairbanks debate, and Peltola had done the same for the TV debate.
Rather than reschedule, they made both happen. The weather cooperated, and so did Alaska Airlines’ schedule, allowing both events to take place on time.
In the Fairbanks airport, Begich traveled with his campaign manager, and the two huddled over a table at the airport coffee stand, when they were interrupted by a surprise visitor — Begich’s next-door neighbor in Eagle River.
It’s the kind of thing that happens in Alaska, he said — everywhere you go, you run into someone you know.
While Begich boarded his flight, Peltola and a group of aides staked out a spot in the opposite end of the airport concourse.
Surrounded by empty chairs, she paged through notes before boarding and taking a seat in the back cabin of the afternoon Fairbanks-Anchorage flight.
Arriving in Anchorage
On the way from the Anchorage airport to Alaska Public Media’s TV studio, Peltola supporters waved signs and cheered her as she went by.
The televised “Debate for the State” is the most widely watched event of each campaign year, and Peltola and Begich were generally cordial as they answered pointed questions from the debate moderators.
It was the first debate of the general election where they faced questions about social issues.
Asked afterward how they thought they did, both U.S. House candidates said that it’s hard to say.
“I’d have to watch it again to see it. When you’re in the middle of it, you’re not able to (tell),” Begich said.
“I always feel like I bombed. I’m a doomsdayer,” Peltola said. “I’m not a good judge on how things went; I think about multiple-second delays in my responses, I forgot these 20 things.”
Peltola and Begich each said that the week of debates allowed voters to hear their differences and similarities.
“We’re trying to present a vision for the state. I think there are some similarities. I think we both want to see the state prosper and grow,” Begich said. “We have different ideas about how that can occur, different priorities for how that goes into place. But that’s what makes a political market. We get to decide which one of these people is going to best represent our state. That’s good. That’s healthy.”
