Alaska State Sen. Matt Claman (D-Anchorage) has announced that he is running for governor in 2026.
As one of the most liberal members of the State Legislature, Claman has long spearheaded the effort to advance the most radical elements of the LGBTQ agenda and has doggedly defend the “right” to kill unborn babies through abortion.
Claman announced his candidacy on Nov. 10, becoming the second Democrat to file along with former State Sen. Tom Begich.
Claman has served as Alaska State Senator for District H (West Anchorage) since January 2023, after previously serving as a State Representative for House District 21 from 2015 to 2023.
He has long been supported by Alaska’s abortion industry, having received Planned Parenthood’s endorsement in his 2014 Alaska House campaign. Since then, he has voted against modest pro-life measures while being lauded as a “pro-abortion” candidate.
He is also a long-time activist for the LGBTQ agenda, dating back to his time serving as Anchorage’s acting mayor.
In 2009, he oversaw the Anchorage Assembly’s 7-4 passage of an ordinance that allowed for businesses and nonprofits to be fined for failing to affirm and support various LGBTQ genders and sexual orientations. In 2018, as House State Affairs Committee chair, he pushed a failed bill to expand special rights for those who identify as LGBTQ when it comes to housing and employment.
Claman has volunteered for a litany of leftwing environmental, pro-abortion and LGBTQ organizations, including the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Alaska Center for the Environment and Planned Parenthood of Alaska.
In announcing his run for governor, Claman claimed he was running to “fight for every Alaskan” and to protect constitutional rights. Specifically, he highlighted the “right to privacy,” which the Alaska Supreme Court has used to impose abortion law on the state.
Before his service in the Senate, he served in the State House of Representatives from 2015 through 2022.
Before that, Claman served as Acting Mayor of Anchorage in 2009. Before and after his service as acting mayor, he represented West Anchorage on the Anchorage Assembly (2007–2010) and was elected assembly chair in 2008.
For much of his career Claman has been a well-connected lawyer. He managed his own small law business for more than 11 years and taught law classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He was elected to the Board of Governors of the Alaska Bar Association in 2002 and served as president of the left-leaning organization in 2007–2008.
He was also instrumental in bringing the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Anchorage for the Alaska State Bar Convention.
When it comes to community service, Claman has volunteered for a litany of leftwing environmental, pro-abortion and LGBTQ organizations, including the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Alaska Center for the Environment and Planned Parenthood of Alaska.
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This past fall, Claman was in the news when his longtime legislative aid, Sarena Hackenmiller, lashed out on social media, when hearing that people were praying for the late Charlie Kirk’s wife and his two young children.
“They’ll be fine,” Hackenmiller quipped. “Life insurance policy and his daughter might have a chance to grow up sane now.”
She added: “Just don’t have much empathy.”
Claman later told the Alaska Landmine that Hackenmiller was sorry about her comments, and then he tried to downplay the post by explaining that it was made on her “personal page” and not in her capacity as a “legislative aid.”
“The legislature’s social media guidelines apply only to legislators and allow staff to exercise their personal free speech rights under the First Amendment,” Claman stated. “Knowing my staffer has acknowledged her terrible error, she is continuing her work in my office.”
15 Comments
I predict they will run a third candidate, just so they can tally all three candidates votes, just to guarantee a least one spot on the ballot.
So happy to hear this! I’m sure the Xtian wackadoo bible thumpers will have a field day with this as they continue to inject their noses in other folks’ personal business and bully sexual minorities. I’m voting for him! Tax churches!
I doubt anyone’s actually worried about this clown, dear.
Figures you would vote for a perfect ass. Do tell me about the wackadoo bible thumpers while you profit from living in a society based upon Judeo-Christian values and laws. The reason you are allowed to be a complete jerk around here is because we tolerate your nonsense, rather than cutting off your head, as the Muslims would do in their own countries. Must be nice to act out like a child with no repercussions and poke your finger in everyone’s eye without anyone slapping you down. Some day, you will figure out why you have no friends and need to come here to act out to get the attention you so crave. God bless your pointed little head.
“……..Tax churches!……….”
Tax NGO’s and do away with tax exempt non-profit corporations!
See David? It works both ways. Let us go forth into the future with spirited zeal and see how it ends. I’m ready, willing, and looking forward to it…………..
Your soul must be a ghost town, angry deviant man.
He needs to be out of politics entirely, let alone in the race for governor. He is awful for our state!
LOL what a clown. Sounds like the perfect Anchorage based candidate.
In 2009, he oversaw the Anchorage Assembly’s 7-4 passage of an ordinance that allowed for businesses and nonprofits to be fined for failing to affirm and support various LGBTQ genders and sexual orientations. Was this ordinance challenged in court due to its affirm and support requirements for those business owners that don’t endorse, support or believe in LGBTQ genders/sexual orientations if it is against their own personal beliefs?
Mr. Claman was worthless as my representative when I lived in Anchorage and I’m sure he will be equally as useless in any role he manages to wrestle from the taxpayers in the future. Couldn’t even get the potholes and bad drainage fixed in Turnagain, so how is he going to accomplish anything but virtue signalling from his “new’ post? Good luck with that.
WITH THE SHLIST OF REPUBLICAN TAKE OUT THE TRASH CANDIDATES WE HAVE, AND THE ELECTION FRAUD SYSTEM WE HAVE, GIVEN TO US BY THOSE SAME REPUBLICANS, WE ARE GOING TO GET GOVERNOR MATT CLAMAN!!!
Could we just make Elon Musk “King of Alaska” and live happily ever after?
Did Jeffrey Epstein father any children?
Wikipedia, the Font of Truth, says “no”
So that’s the DEI hire that started it all. Representing the freak fringe to “transition” governance from education, public safety, roads, water & sewer to the non-representative, unaffordable Woke social engineering.
Didn’t that joker assume the role of Anchorage mayor at one point?
He’s one of those exemplary individuals who prove that age does not necessarily equate to wisdom.