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One week and a day left until the Alaska primary is over and the mailbox campaign flyer avalanche ends

Good Monday morning!

**Between Golden Knights parachute team demonstrations and Blue Angels, the 2026 Arctic Thunder Air Show on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was one for the history books.**

The raspberries are ripe, nagoonberries can't be far behind, and every salmon stream in Alaska seems to be calling someone's name. Summer isn't over yet, even if the campaign calendar says otherwise. With just a week until the Aug. 18 primary, candidates are making their final arguments, while lawmakers drift back to Juneau for another round of gasline limbo. Let's get you caught up.

Thanks for spending part of your Monday with The Alaska Story.

~ Suzanne

The Alaska Story is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🎙️ Top story

☭ Peltola's record aligns with some of the most radical positions taken by Democrat-Socialist candidates running in America this year. Read more.

Also today…

😠 Lisa Murkowski voted for Biden’s Justice Department architects, who hounded Trump endlessly. But this time, she opposed Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, a lawyer who defended Trump against Special Counsel Jack Smith. Murkowski’s TDS flare up.

⛏️ Trump’s mining push puts University of Alaska Fairbanks in line for workforce funding. Read more.

Today’s Number

26.2 lb

Patrick Dryer is the apparent winner of the Golden North Salmon Derby this year with a king salmon weighing 26.2 pounds at Auke Nu on August 7. Unofficial at this point, but likely to hold.

**Know someone who loves Alaska? Send them this newsletter.**

🗓️ Both Alaska House and Senate will be meeting on Tuesday … and once again we are not expecting much, as there has been no new gasline legislation filed. Conversations continue.

🤔 Thomas Fenoseff writes about what he saw at the Bear Paw Parade, and how Sen. Dan S. Sullivan represents all Alaskans. Read more.

🙋‍♀️ Adam Crum sweeps a straw poll at Soldotna debate. Read more.

🗳️ Robert Myers writes about why he is voting “No” on Ballot Measure 1 this month. Read more.

🚢 A barge arrives in King Cove. And it’s loaded with road construction equipment. Read more.

📚 Back to school starts this week in the MatSu Valley and later classrooms will fill up across the state. Who has reading scores to brag about? Not Anchorage. Read more.

*Bernadette Wilson listens to Bob Winters describe how he had to jack his home up by nine feet so far to get above the flood zone.*

🌊 Suicide Basin is nearing capacity and the next glacial flooding could occur this week in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley flood zone. Read more.

🤡 ADN echoes radical candidate Bronco Williams as he bucks security protocols for the House Speaker. Read more.

But wait … Remember when Obama came to Anchorage and the ADN never once critiqued the security? We do…

The Alaska Story Exclusives:

Somehow the Democrats think this mask pic is a compelling look for a Knik-Fairview candidate for Alaska House, who is running against Rep. Steve St. Clair:

Former Anchorage Daily News opinion editor Tom Hewitt has come out of the political closet, so to speak, publicly endorsing Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for governor.

Hewitt writes that he is “still very much getting used to being allowed to share political opinions like this publicly,” but his enthusiastic support for the liberal candidate is unlikely to surprise longtime readers.

Hewitt was never regarded as politically neutral by conservatives who followed his work at either the Daily News or the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, where he was widely viewed as a hard-core liberal even while operating behind the institutional curtain of newspaper journalism. Now free from that constraint, Hewitt praises Kreiss-Tomkins as one of the smartest and hardest-working people he has met, dismisses criticism that the youthful candidate is running on “vibes,” and urges Alaskans to support him in the Aug. 18 primary. It’s an endorsement that makes explicit the political leanings many readers believed were evident all along.

Suzanne’s notebook:

*Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (long before he was senator) and Julie Fate Sullivan, 32 years ago in Fairbanks.*

💍32 years ago, this 👆cute couple tied the knot on the banks of the Chena River at St. Matthew’s Church in Fairbanks. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Julie Fate Sullivan celebrated their 32nd anniversary last week.

Video: Footage from the Speaker Johnson event on Friday:

“Sup, Wasilla?

‘Sup, Juneau?

Alaska House gavels in Tuesday at 10:30 am, Senate gavels in at 11 am, but no business is expected to be conducted. Earlier they had scheduled a floor session today, but that has been postponed.

‘Sup, Fairbanks?

Quote of the Day

Today’s meme:

Oil out, money in

Alaska North Slope crude: ~$78.49/barrel / 409,547 barrels/day

Alaska Permanent Fund balance: Aug. 6: $91,858,600,000

Thanks for spending a few minutes with me this morning. If a friend forwarded this newsletter to you, I’d love to have you join us as a subscriber. Have a wonderful Alaska week. I'll see you back here Wednesday morning.