Many Alaska voters say they want parties to work together. What do they mean?

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Four voters speak with Alaska Public Media during a reporting trip around the state. From left: Karen Emmel, Alex Rosputko, Cara Hesselbach and Ross Cameron. (Matt Faubion and Liz Ruskin/Alaska Public Media)

Alex Rosputko, a crypto trader in Eagle River and a registered Republican, told us he longs for what he remembers of the politics of the late ‘80s and ‘90s.

“There was always some position that both parties agreed to and could work towards. But now, it just seems so polarized,” he said. “There is very little dialogue going on. Everybody just finds faults with everybody else, and nobody finds a compromise, a solution that we both could work with.”

Rosputko was one of dozens of Alaskans we’ve spoken with this election cycle about some of the most important issues facing the state and their communities. Many, like Rosputko, told us they wanted politicians to work together across the aisle.

Alaska politicians have a long history of working across party lines, even before open primaries and ranked choice voting came on the scene in 2022. Today, a bipartisan centrist coalition representing 85% of the Alaska Senate controls the upper chamber. Even the conservative Republican-led House majority includes two Democrats and an independent representing districts off the road system, and the House minority caucus largely composed of Democrats and independents includes a moderate Republican.

Though the Senate’s bipartisan majority could shrink, it’s likely to survive the November election, but control of the lower chamber is up for grabs.

As it happens, there is a race in Eagle River where bipartisanship is a big issue: the race for the Eagle River state Senate seat currently held by Republican Kelly Merrick.

Republican Jared Goecker is challenging Merrick from the right, and he’s made Merrick’s decision to join the Senate’s bipartisan coalition of nine Democrats and eight Republicans a key issue in the race.

Merrick has defended her record. She says she’s a conservative Republican who joined the majority in order to push the centrist coalition to the right while bringing home results for her constituents in Eagle River. Goecker, on the other hand, says she betrayed the district’s conservative voters by crossing the aisle. Goecker ran about even with Merrick in the August primary, though the ballot included two other conservative Republicans opposed to the current Senate coalition who have since dropped out of the race.

So we asked Rosputko: What do you think about Kelly Merrick?

“She’s a party jumper,” he told us. “She ran one day as a staunch conservative, and she’s nothing like it.”

Though plenty of the Eagle River voters we spoke with favored Merrick, Rosputko was certainly not alone in his opinion.

So maybe bipartisanship sounds a bit better in theory than in practice — or maybe it depends more on how the candidate presents themselves to voters.

“I just think if you could come forward with it, be open about your position from the very beginning. … I just felt very deceived, [I’ll] put it that way,” Rosputko said.

In Ninilchik, pizza shop owner and registered independent Ross Cameron told us he was excited to vote for Congresswoman Mary Peltola. She’s made no secret of her tendency to cross the aisle and vote against her Democratic colleagues on a number of occasions — and that’s a big part of what Cameron likes.

“She understands the Republican side, she understands the Democratic side, and is willing to work with both,” he said. “And she’s honest.”

Peltola and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, well-known for breaking with her Republican colleagues, should be a model for the rest of the country, Cameron said.

It’s a similar story for Karen Emmel of Anchorage. She was a longtime Republican, “but they’ve been disappointing me lately,” she said. She’s now a registered Democrat.

Like Cameron, she said she plans to vote for Mary Peltola in part because of her willingness to cross the aisle.

“I’ve always liked Mary because I think that she votes for the issues, and she votes for what’s good for the state,” she said.

In Wasilla, environmental scientist and registered independent Cara Hesselbach told us she hadn’t made a decision in the U.S. House race, but she was happy to tell us about how she’s thinking about who to vote for this November.

She said she wants someone with a little ideological flexibility.

“I almost would want a candidate to be more open,” Hesselbach said. “More interested in what the population wants, rather than coming in swinging with, like, a hard, ‘This is my platform, take it or leave it’ kind of perspective.”

But for a lot of voters — Hesselbach included — even when bipartisanship is a priority, it can be hard to articulate exactly what you want.

“It’s tough,” she said. “Sometimes, you don’t know until you hear it.”

This story is part of a project we’re calling “The View From Here,” a collaboration between Alaska Public Media and America Amplified putting voters at the center of our election coverage. To learn more about it, or to submit your own thoughts for a future story, visit alaskapublic.org/theviewfromhere.

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