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060120 Political Note #294 Alyce Galvin AL CD AL
2020 General Election
Alyce Galvin https://www.alyse4alaska.com/ lost the 2018 Congressional race to long-time incumbent Don Young 53-47. Congressional races in Alaska are different from what they used to be. Young won 53-36 in 2016; 51-41 in 2014, 64-29 in 2012, 69-31 in 2010, 50-45 in 2008, 57-40 in 2006, 71-22 in 2004, 75-17 in 2002, and 70-17 in 2000. Looking just at this century.
Can Alyce Galvin make up the six or seven points she lost by. Don Young will be 87 in a few days. She won’t run against Don Young claiming he’s too old. But his age is a presence.
Alyce Galvin was an independent in 2018. She still is. Like her “running mate” Al Gross, candidate for the US Senate, she is an independent endorsed by the Democrats. To understand her, begin long before 2018.
Begin with The Bishop’s School. An independent Episcopal prep school in La Jolla, California. Asked how The Bishop’s School shaped her life, Alyce Galvin responded:
I was the last and only six-year boarder in my class. I didn’t realize, until I was raising my own kids, how fortunate I was that Bishop’s was there to catch me when my own family had fallen apart. For me, Bishop’s did more than change my life; it saved my life. It felt at times that Headmistress Dorothy Williams kept boarding going until I graduated because she knew I had nowhere else to go. Ruth “Willie” Wilforth took me to her home on breaks and came to Alaska to visit me…. I learned through Willie and others how kindness and intentional care can truly change a child’s life, and that it was our duty to help whenever and wherever we saw a need. … [D]uring my time there the faculty and staff were engaged in growing leaders; they addressed the challenges of educating children to learn empathy and action. My formative experiences at Bishop’s grew me into who I am today.
Alyce Galvin’s life was shaped by this extraordinary Episcopalian school and by her Alaskan family overwhelmed by domestic violence, drug addiction, and mental illness, a family in which she started working when she was eight years old. Had she not escaped to The Bishop’s School, her life would have been very different.
Alyce Galvin stayed in California to attend college at the University of California, San Diego. She graduated in 1988 and, with her husband, returned home to Anchorage. They did ordinary jobs. She ran a daycare. She waitressed. She became a hostess for a restaurant and graduated to public relations. She directed entertainment for Anchorage’s downtown market. She worked as a substitute teacher. Went back to waitressing. She finally took a step up at the Sheraton Hotel – first as Sales Manager, then as Director of Convention Services.
Back to a secretarial job, but for an early childhood organization. Alyce Galvin knew what education had meant for her and a passion for what it could do for everyone. She became a liaison to the Alaska Department of Education, began doing her own consulting. She founded and ran what is now known as Great Alaska Schools.
Great Alaska Schools was intentionally non-partisan. Its goal was to ensure a sustainable and sufficient level of school funding (achingly, that meant, in 2014, getting funding back to the 2011 level). Great Alaska Schools sought to create an engaged education community that achieved its goals.
Alyce Galvin was serious about the non-partisan part. Her husband Patrick earned a BA, an MBA, and a JD in schools in colleges and universities in San Diego. With Alyce, he knocked around a bit in Anchorage before settling in. He worked as a Petroleum Land Manager for the State of Alaska after which he was appointed Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Revenue by Governor Sarah Palin. He served from 2006 until 2011, when he briefly joined a law firm. From the law firm, he became Chief Commercial Officer & General Counsel for Great Bear Petroleum. He knows what it means for Alaska to live in the current, low price oil and gas era.
Alyce Galvin understands the consequences of low prices for oil and gas on education in Alaska. As in every state, education in Alaska is a large part of public spending. Oil and gas are 80% of Alaska’s revenue. Compelled to reduce spending, education is an inevitable target. Her educational advocacy organization was created in that context.
As a candidate, Alyce Galvin’s issues extend beyond education. The post office is one. At a time when the US Post Office is threatened by a President who bears a grudge, she argues that the Post Office is particularly crucial for Alaska. Alaska probably has more addresses that the private mail services do not reach than any other state. She focuses on Native Americans in Alaska –15% of the state’s population. Get them counted for the census. Address the “epidemic of homicide” among them. She’s got a focus.
She’s got a chance. With the change in oil and gas prices, Alaskan politics is changing. It may be the right time and the right place for political independents like Alyce Galvin endorsed by Democrats to succeed. It is not a great time for traditional Alaskan Republicans. The Republican, Mike Dunleavy, replaced Bill Walker, one of those independents endorsed by Democrats. Walker solved a large part of the state’s financial problems by eliminating the approximately $1,000 per year oil dividend received by every resident since the early 1980s. Dunleavy promised to restore it and to repay what was lost under Walker besides. Dunleavy’s efforts to fulfill that promise and cut just about everything else in Alaska’s budget was a large part, but not the only part of the creation of an opposition coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the legislature and the pressure for Dunleavy’s recall.
Help Alyce Galvin https://www.alyse4alaska.com/ take advantage of the political distress caused by Mike Dunleavy, the increased popularity of independents who Democrats are glad to endorse. With your help, this can be the new politics of Alaska. As a Member of Congress, Alyce Galvin can make a difference for education nationally. Other issues, too. Help her out.
Below are Congressional seats Democrats are trying to flip from incumbent Republicans. The ones with asterisks ran in 2018* In 2018, Democrats flipped 40 Republican seats in the House. Let’s flip 20 more.
Alaska AL Alyce Galvin* to defeat incumbent Don Young
Arizona 06 Hiral Tipirneni* to defeat incumbent David Schweikert
Arkansas 02. Joyce Elliott to defeat incumbent French Hill
California 25. Christy Smith to defeat incumbent Mike Garcia who won the May special election.
California 50 Ammar Campa-Hajjar* to win this now open Rep seat
Florida 16 Margaret Good to defeat incumbent Vern Buchanan
Illinois 13 Betsy Dirksen Londrigen* to defeat incumbent Rodney Davis
Indiana 05 Christina Hale to win this open Republican seat
Iowa 04 JD Scholten* to defeat incumbent Steve King
Kansas 02 Michelle De La Isla to defeat incumbent Steve Watkins
Michigan 03. Hillary Scholten to win this open seat
Michigan 06 Jon Hoadley to defeat incumbent Fred Upton
Minnesota 01 Dan Feehan* to defeat incumbent Jim Hagedorn
Missouri 02 Jill Schupp to defeat incumbent Ann Wagner
Montana AL Kathleen Williams* to win this open Republican seat
Nebraska 02. Kara Eastman to defeat incumbent Don Bacon
New York 02 Jackie Gordon to win this open Republican seat
New York 21 Tedra Cobb* to defeat incumbent Elise Stefanic
New York 24 Dana Balter* to defeat incumbent John Katko
North Carolina 09. Cynthia Wallace to defeat incumbent Dan Bishop
Ohio 01 Kate Schroder to defeat incumbent Steve Chabot
Pennsylvania 10 Eugene DePasquale to defeat incumbent Scott Perry
Texas 02 Sima Ladjervardian to defeatncumbent Dan Crenshaw
Texas 21 Wendy Davis to defeat incumbent Chip Roy
Texas 22 Sri Preston Kalkuri to win this open Republican seat
Texas 23 Gina Ortiz Jones* to win this open Republican seat
Texas 24 Kim Olson to win this open Republican seat
Washington 03 Carolyn Long* to defeat incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler
Wisconsin 07 Tricia Zunker to defeat incumbent Tom Tiffany who won the May Special Election
