Candidates in Governor’s Race Join Forces
ANCHORAGE — The independent and Democratic candidates for Alaska governor said Tuesday that they are merging their campaigns to give them a better shot at unseating Republican incumbent Gov. Sean Parnell.
Independent Bill Walker said Tuesday that he has dropped his membership in the Alaska Republican Party and reregistered as undeclared. It was a move stipulated by the Alaska Democratic Party’s central committee when it voted 89-2 Monday to endorse Walker as governor and Democrat Byron Mallott as lieutenant governor.
Walker, 63, has been running as an independent, but he didn’t change his official party affiliation until Tuesday. Mallott, 71, won last month’s Democratic primary election for governor.
A combined ticket is expected to provide a stronger challenge to Parnell in November.
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My thoughts:
In a 3-way race, Republican Parnell would have easily won by splitting the opposition vote between the Democratic Candidate (Mallott) and the Independent candidate (Walker). Looks like we now have a real horse race. Parnell is not very popular in some circles due to his close ties to Big Oil. Parnell and the Republican legislature pushed through an oil tax reduction bill (SB 21) which severely reduced the taxes on the oil industry. A citizens initiative to repeal this oil tax reduction bill barely failed in the election last week. Some estimates have this oil tax reduction bill giving a 2-4 BILLION dollar annual reduction in taxes to Big Oil. All the State of Alaska got was a “promise” to drill more to add future supplies of oil. The oil industry has not been very faithful in keeping their promises, i.e. lawsuits for the Exxon Valdez spill and BP’s Gulf well blowout are still ongoing.