Morning Digest: Why Alaska is home to the nation's most complicated state legislature

Forget bipartisanship—we're talking tripartisanship

Far-right state Rep. David Eastman is essentially his own caucus in the Alaska House of Representatives (Credit: David Eastman website)

Leading Off

AK State House, AK State Senate

The Alaska House of Representatives will once again play host to one of the most unpredictable legislative battles in the nation as Democrats hope that a unique tripartisan coalition can wrest control of the speakership from the GOP leadership. The Alaska Beacon's James Brooks looks at the key races to watch to help make sense of this complex fight.

Republicans nominally outnumber Democrats 22-13 in a 40-person chamber that includes five unaligned members, but the actual math is far more complicated. The 23-member Majority Caucus consists of 20 Republicans, including Speaker Cathy Tilton, as well as three other members: Democrats Neal Foster and CJ McCormick and independent Bryce Edgmon.

These non-Republicans all belong to the Bush Caucus, whose members represent the vast rural districts that are home to large Alaska Native electorates and often support the majority party to best secure state resources for their constituents.

Edgmon himself allied with the GOP caucus as a Democrat before he became speaker of a new Democratic-led coalition that also included independents and Republicans following the 2016 elections. Edgmon became an independent two years later as part of a delicate set of negotiations that secured him another term as speaker. Leadership then shifted to Republican Louise Stutes during the coalition's final two years, but the alliance broke up after Republicans gained seats in 2022.

The 16-strong Minority Caucus includes the chamber's remaining Democrats and independents plus Stutes, its lone Republican. The final seat in the House is held by Republican Rep. David Eastman, a far-right extremist who has a terrible relationship with his party's leadership and doesn't caucus with anyone. Both of these dissident Republicans will likely return to serve another term year after turning in landslide victories in last month's top-four primaries.

All of this makes it tough for anyone to forge a workable coalition, and Alaska's instant-runoff voting system introduces more unpredictability. We may not even know who winds up in charge of the House until next year: The current Majority Caucus didn't even come together until well into January of 2023.

Things are more stable in the Alaska Senate, where 17 of the 20 members belong to a bipartisan coalition. Three conservative Republicans form the rump minority in a chamber where the GOP ostensibly outnumbers Democrats 11-9.

Brooks writes that it's likely that this alliance will continue next year, especially since just over half of its members are either unopposed in 2024 or aren't on the ballot again until 2026. However, he adds that hardline Republicans still may be able to make gains, including in one race where "a false-flag Democrat" is running to siphon votes away from one GOP member of the coalition, Sen. Jesse Bjorkman.

The Downballot

General election season starts *now*

The long primary season that began—if you can believe it—more than six months ago has at last come to an end, finally setting the stage for November's general election. First, though, we have a few races to recap on this week's episode of The Downballot podcast, including the Democrats' primary for New Hampshire's open governorship, their most enticing flip opportunity in the nation. Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also excoriate Ron DeSantis for using Florida's state government to fight an abortion rights amendment, a maneuver direct from the authoritarian's playbook.

Our guest on the show this week is Lauren Gepford, whose group, Contest Every Race, recruits Democratic candidates nationwide to run in races far down the ballot that often go uncontested. Gepford explains how her organization figures out which of the nation's half-million elected positions to target (it's a huge task!) and tells us about its remarkably effective recruitment tool: texting folks to ask them if they might want to run. Even in the reddest areas, it's all about giving voters a choice when they might otherwise have none.

The Downballot podcast comes out every Thursday morning everywhere you listen to podcasts. To make sure you never miss an episode, just click the button below:

You can also find a complete transcript here.

Governors

DE-Gov

While Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long decisively lost Tuesday's Democratic primary for governor of Delaware to New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer, reader C.H. informs The Downballot that Hall-Long will likely get to be governor anyway for two weeks in January.

Hall-Long would owe her brief tenure to termed-out Gov. John Carney, who prevailed that same night in the Democratic primary for mayor of Wilmington and faces no opposition in the general election. Crucially, Carney's term in his new post will start Jan. 7, which is 14 days before he would otherwise leave office as governor.

Hall-Long wouldn't be the first lieutenant governor of Delaware to enjoy a similarly short stint as chief executive. In 1992, Republican Gov. Mike Castle and Democratic Rep. Tom Carper successfully swapped offices, prompting Castle to resign in early January to join the new Congress. Republican Lt. Gov. Dale Wolf, who did not run for anything that cycle, took over as governor in the weeks before Carper was sworn in.

Wolf's service made him the First State's most recent GOP governor, though it's not quite clear how long he held that office. Sarah Gamard wrote in a 2021 obituary in the Delaware News Journal that "[a]rchives online and from the state's Legislative Librarian vary on his exact amount of time as governor, but reports range between 16 and 20 days." She adds that Wolf issued a few executive orders during his abbreviated stay in the governor's mansion.

Not every lieutenant governor gets to experience a brief turn in the spotlight after their boss wins another office, though. Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera's hopes to become his state's first Cuban American governor were dashed in late 2018 when Gov. Rick Scott, a fellow Republican who had just won a Senate race, announced he'd complete the remainder of his term rather than resign five days early to join Congress.

WA-Gov

Not only does Dave Reichert face a large financial deficit in his quest to become Washington's next governor, it appears that the Republican Governors Association isn't especially interested in helping him make up the shortfall.

Democrat Bob Ferguson ended August with a hefty $1.3 million to $470,000 cash advantage over Reichert, and the Washington Observer is skeptical that Reichert's side will be able to turn things around in time. While conservative megadonor Steve Gordon is funding a group called Washington 24 that's been running ads against Ferguson, his efforts to entice the RGA to invest in Reichert have so far been in vain.

Republicans have hoped that Reichert, who held a competitive U.S. House seat from 2005 until his retirement in 2019, would give the party a strong shot at flipping an office the GOP last won in 1980. Last month's top-two primary results, though, offered dismal news for Reichert even before his new fundraising numbers came in. Ferguson led Reichert 45-27, while the nine Democratic candidates for governor outpaced the eight Republicans by a combined 55-43 spread.

House

PA-01

Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick has publicized an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies that shows him leading Democrat Ashley Ehasz 54-40 in Pennsylvania's 1st District, which is based in Bucks County just outside of Philadelphia. Politics PA, which first reported the survey, did not mention presidential numbers for this constituency, which Joe Biden carried 52-47 in 2020.

Fitzpatrick beat Ehasz 55-45 two years ago, and each side released a poll earlier this year presenting very different numbers for their rematch. A May internal for Fitzpatrick from a different GOP pollster, Grassroots Targeting, showed him ahead 51-36. An Upswing Research poll conducted the next month for Ehasz, by contrast, placed her behind just 47-45.

Legislatures

DE State House

First-time candidate Kamela Smith defeated Delaware State House Speaker Valerie Longhurst in a 53-47 upset in Tuesday's Democratic primary in a suburban Wilmington constituency that the incumbent has represented for 20 years.

Smith, who works as a mental healthcare professional, argued that the state's leaders had failed to address mental health issues.

"I am a person motivated by correcting injustice from a down up direct-line approach, that only a regular person can do," Smith said on her campaign site, adding that "we need more regular people in our legislature." Smith, who had the support of the progressive Working Families Party, faces no opposition in the general election.

Longhurst, who became the first woman to serve as speaker just last year, is the fourth and final state legislative leader to lose renomination in 2024. The top Senate leaders in Idaho and West Virginia, Republicans Chuck Winder and Craig Blair, both lost renomination in May, while Hawaii House Speaker Scott Saiki failed to win the Democratic primary last month. Oklahoma State Senate Majority Leader Greg McCortney also lost the GOP primary in June, not long after his colleagues picked him to become the chamber's leader in 2025.

This year wasn't a complete disaster for vulnerable legislative leaders, however. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan looked like a goner in March after an opponent backed by Donald Trump, David Covey, led him 46-43 in the first round of voting. Phelan, though, won an exceptionally expensive runoff just after Memorial Day by just 389 votes.

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff

Arizona Democrat Tyler Kamp earned a cross-party endorsement on Tuesday from former law enforcement official Mike Crawford, who took 26% of the vote in July's Republican primary for Maricopa County sheriff. Kamp faces Republican Jerry Sheridan in the general election to serve as the top law enforcement officer in America's fourth-largest county.

Obituaries

Jim Sasser

Former Tennessee Sen. Jim Sasser, a three-term Democrat who lost reelection to Republican Bill Frist during the 1994 Republican wave, died Tuesday at the age of 87.

Sasser's defeat occurred on the same day as Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper's loss to Republican Fred Thompson in a special election for the final two years of Vice President Al Gore's Senate term. Democrats have yet to regain either of the Volunteer State's seats.

Sasser managed Al Gore Sr.'s unsuccessful bid for reelection to the Senate against Republican Bill Brock in 1970, but he soon succeeded where the elder Gore had not. Just six years later, attacking Brock as "a special interest senator who represents exclusively money interests," Sasser unseated him 52-47 and easily won his next two campaigns.

He also looked destined to reach even greater heights: As the Nashville Tennessean noted in its obituary, he appeared poised to become majority leader after the 1994 elections. Instead, though, Sasser lost a nasty campaign to Frist, a prominent heart surgeon who campaigned under the slogan "18 years is long enough," in a 56-42 landslide as Republicans were flipping the Senate.

Sasser later served as President Bill Clinton's ambassador to China, while it was Frist who eventually became majority leader.

Poll Pile

• WI-Sen: Marquette Law: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc): 51, Eric Hovde (R): 45 (48-43 Harris) (Aug.: 51-45 Baldwin)

Ad Roundup

• AZ-Sen: Club for Growth - anti-Ruben Gallego (D); Environmental Defense Fund - pro-Gallego (D) (in Spanish)

• MI-Sen: Elissa Slotkin (D) - anti-Mike Rogers (R) (here and here); Rogers (R) and the NRSC

• NV-Sen: CFG - anti-Jacky Rosen (D-inc) (in English and Spanish)

• WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin (D-inc) - anti-Eric Hovde (R)

• WA-Gov: Dave Reichert (R)

• AK-AL: Congressional Leadership Fund - anti-Mary Peltola (D-inc)

• AZ-06: CLF - anti-Kirsten Engel (D)

• CA-13: Adam Gray (D)

• CA-22: CLF - Rudy Salas (D)

• CA-41: Ken Calvert (R-inc); CLF - anti-Will Rollins (D); Defending Main Street - pro-Calvert and anti-Rollins ($200,000 buy)

• CA-49: Matt Gunderson (R)

• CO-08: CLF - anti-Yadira Caraveo (D-inc)

• MI-08: Paul Junge (R) and the NRCC

• NC-01: NRCC - anti-Don Davis (D-inc)

• NY-17: CLF - anti-Mondaire Jones (D)

• NY-18: CLF - anti-Pat Ryan (D-inc) and pro-Alison Esposito (R)

• NY-19: CLF - anti-Josh Riley (D)

• OH-09: CLF - anti-Marcy Kaptur (D-inc)

• OR-05: CLF - Janelle Bynum (D)

• PA-08: CLF - anti-Matt Cartwright (D-inc)

• TX-15: Monica De La Cruz (R-inc)

• FL Ballot: Vote Yes on Amendment 3 - pro-marijuana legalization