Yogi Berra once said, “It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”  Despite his warning, political pollsters still try to predict election results every election cycle, but with mixed success. Polling is difficult and when you add in Alaska’s nutty ranked-choice voting system, it gets even harder to get it right. That being said, I’m going to give it a shot. Here is my non-scientific analysis of the reelection chances for Sarah Vance, incumbent Representative in Alaska House District 6.

Election results in Alaska House District 6 come down to two important factors; voter turnout and how candidates use RCV to shape the election results. 

Turnout is the most important factor in District 6 elections. While this is normally a district that votes reliably conservative Red in high-turnout elections, it has the unique ability to switch and become a liberal Blue district when voter turnout is low. That phenomenon was explained in a previous blog post, and you can read more about it at this LINK.

If you look at voter registrations for the 9 precincts in District 6, you can begin to get an understanding of the electorate. Some voters have registered their political party affiliation. Of these voters, there are 2-1/2 times as many Republicans as there are Democrats. That might lead you to think District 6 votes for conservatives most of the time, but that alone is not enough to predict how the district will vote because the largest block of voters, have declared no party affiliation and are shown as Undeclared or Nonpartisan. 

We can’t conclude if the electorate is liberal or conservative from just voter registrations alone. Some other way is needed to understand the likely voting pattern for these voters. One way to do so is to look at election results. If the majority of District 6 voters regularly support Democrats or Republicans, we can draw some conclusions about how they will vote in the 2024 general election for both Donald Trump and for Sarah Vance’s State House race. 

This chart is busy but look at the Winner and Voter Turnout columns. The historical election results for District 6 confirm what we already suspected. District 6 is a majority conservative district when there is a high voter turnout of over 50%, but when the voter turnout is low like it typically is for city council elections, only the Democrats show up to vote, and they elect liberal candidates. That is how District 6 overwhelmingly votes for conservatives like Sarah Vance for State House and Donald Trump for president, while at the same time has elected a liberal majority city council in Homer. When voter turnout is high, the will of the people is heard. When voter turnout is low, a small group of partisan liberal Democrats can decide elections.

While this might be surprising to some readers, you can be sure that both the Democrat and Republican parties are very much aware of it. They know that Republican Sarah Vance would be favored over a Democrat candidate for State House in 2024. This explains why there are no Democrats on the current slate of candidates, and how the liberals intend to steal this election from Sarah. They are going to try to pull a “Peltola” on her.

There are currently 4 candidates running for the District 6 State House seat. They are;

The lack of a Democrat candidate should immediately jump out at you. No Democrat candidates are running for this seat. Is that really true? Nope. Some of Sarah Vance’s opponents would run as a Democrat if they were being honest. However, they know that it is political suicide to declare their true party affiliations in District 6 in a presidential election year. Voter turnout will be well over 65%, and in a straight head-to-head matchup, a Republican state house candidate would win overwhelmingly against a person running as a Democrat. That is why Vance’s opponents are registered as Nonpartisan or even one sly opponent also registered as a Republican. 

So, let’s look at each of the candidates and their chances. 

I know Alana Greear, both of our kids were in the annual holiday Nutcracker plays together. She is a nice lady and will get lots of votes because of her past contributions to the community. Alana is a long-time employee of the Kenai Peninsula School District. She is probably a member of the teachers’ union, and I suspect her political views probably lean toward issues supported by the teachers and their union. She is registered as a Nonpartisan, but that is likely an attempt to provide voters with a left-of-center alternative to Representative Vance, without claiming to be a Democrat. Alana will get the vote of the schoolteachers and union members, and she lives in Homer the largest town in District 6, so will probably be the number one candidate of liberal voters. Alana is a formidable challenger to Representative Vance.

I have never met Brent Johnson, he is a commercial fisherman from Clam Gulch and as a former fisherman myself, I respect that. The first comment on his website was about getting more money for schools. He didn’t mention any other issue. There was nothing about balancing the budget, finding more revenue sources, encouraging oil and gas development, or reining in the radical Alaska judiciary. I suspect that he is a one-issue candidate aligned with the schoolteacher’s union. He will likely steal votes from Alana Greear, so his candidacy probably helps Sarah Vance’s reelection. Also, since Mr. Johnson is from Clam Gulch, a small community with less than 10% of the voters in the district, his candidacy should not hurt Sarah Vance, only help it.

Dawson Slaughter is the real wild card in this election. It looks like he is trying to use the shenanigans allowed by the Ranked Choice Voting system to steal an election from Sarah Vance, by pretending to be a “nice” Republican. Since we are using RCV and only four people are running in the open August primary, no matter the primary vote count, Dawson Slaughter will be on the General Election ballot in November. I discussed the strategy that a faux Republican could use to run against Sarah Vance to steal the election from her in a previous post available at this LINK, so won’t elaborate further here.

Slaughter comes across as a true politician. His website contains platitudes that sound wonderful but don’t really say much. His words are like cotton candy. They taste sweet but contain no substance. He says enough to attract voters who don’t regularly follow politics and presents himself as the “nice guy” alternative to Sarah Vance.

This worked for the Democrat Mary Peltola campaign in 2022, so is a strategy that has a proven record of success in RCV elections. That makes Dawson Slaughter worthy of concern for the Vance campaign. Honestly, I don’t think he will have enough name recognition to do well. Also, Anchor Point like Clam Gulch has a relatively low population and the few voters there should not hurt Vance’s chances for reelection. The big concern for the Vance campaign is that Slaughter could split the Republican vote, delivering the election to Greear, similar to how Mary Peltola won her race in 2022.

Conservatives will vote for Vance, liberals will vote for Greear, and Johnson and Slaughter will fight over the undecided and clueless voters. It will all come down to how people fill out their second and third choices on the always confusing RCV ballots. Nobody really understands the final results of any RCV election, so this one could go either way.

Ok, so after all of this analysis, who is going to win the House District 6 race? If I was betting, my money would be on Sarah Vance. She is the most conservative candidate in the race. It is a presidential election year and with Donald Trump in the race, there will be a huge voter turnout. With Trump on the ballot, every conservative in the district will be voting for Trump and also for every down-ballot conservative Republican. All of these things bode well for Representative Vance’s candidacy. That’s my take on things, I predict Vance will win by a margin of at least 10%, as long as RCV doesn’t screw things up for her.

The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.

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