Over the next five weeks, they are coming for you. To knock on your doors, salt your TV shows with campaign ads and hit you up for donations.
Election Day is April 3, and 19 candidates are looking to elbow their way into six Anchorage Assembly seats in this year's city elections.
While it's too early to cast ballots, many people -- including the mayor and nearly all Assembly members -- have already voted with their checkbooks, according to campaign finance reports candidates recently filed with the state.
The seats are all considered nonpartisan, but political party activists are lining up behind distinct slates of candidates whom they hope will win the soul of the Assembly.
Assembly members control $400 million in annual spending that decides how many police officers patrol the streets, how quickly snowy streets get plowed and how well parks are groomed. They also decide where people can smoke, who must wear bicycle helmets and whether teens can vote on city commissions.
So far, the most expensive race is also one of the most anticipated by politics watchers interviewed last week:Midtown incumbent Dan Coffey versus former Assembly staff director Elvi Gray-Jackson.
As of Feb. 1, Coffey had raised nearly $65,000, according to his reports filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, while Gray-Jackson had raised just more than $31,000.
Jason Dowell, who is also running for the seat, filed paperwork saying he doesn't plan to raise or spend more than $5,000 in the race.
In East Anchorage, incumbent Ken Stout and challenger Sheila Selkregg, a former city planner, are quickly stacking cash too, each topping $30,000 in donations as of early February. Stout headed the state Republican Party from 1980 to 1984, while Selkregg is a lifelong Democrat.
Alex Crawford, who like Dowell belongs to the Alaska Libertarian Party, says he'll run a shoestring campaign.
No other candidate except West Anchorage hopeful Matt Claman had raised more than $30,000 as of Feb. 1, according to unaudited reports filed with APOC.
Candidates often emphasize that Assembly seats are nonpartisan -- party labels aren't supposed to matter and don't appear next to candidates' names on the ballots. Still, factions form along ideological lines in many races and political parties can influence the elections.
Republican Party chairman Randy Ruedrich counts Coffey among what he calls a "conservative majority" on the Assembly and talked last week about strengthening that majority to keep Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, in check.
Ruedrich said the Republican Party conducted phone surveys earlier this year in two Assembly districts where incumbents that he considers left-leaning, Janice Shamberg and Pamela Jennings, aren't running for re-election.
"We need to keep what we have, and adding one more vote to the conservative majority on the Assembly would be very nice," said Ruedrich. He has donated $100 to Coffey's campaign.
Coffey's party affiliation is listed as "other" on his voter registration, according to state records. Gray-Jackson is a Democrat.
Alaska Democratic Party chairman Jake Metcalfe said he recently attended a packed fundraiser for Selkregg and praised Gray-Jackson's experience working with the city. He said city races aren't about Democrats or Republicans, but he criticized the current Assembly majority.
"It's more of a low-energy, do-nothing Assembly. And if that's conservative, that's probably a good title for it," he said.
Metcalfe said the Democratic Party hasn't conducted phone surveys on the city races but will do so if it gets the money. The party may do some get-out-the vote work, such as calling voters and mailing absentee ballots, he said. Ruedrich said the Republicans will likely do the same.
Anchorage pollster David Dittman, who worked for Republican candidates in the recent governor's race, described Assembly races as "totally partisan."
"I don't think anybody is fooled by who is what," he said. "The Democrats certainly recruit their people to run and the Republicans do the same thing."
In 2005, the Assembly shifted to the right when conservatives Chris Birch and Paul Bauer ousted Begich allies Dick Tremaine and Brian Whittle, but the mayor says campaign-season talk of a liberal versus conservative balance of power on the Assembly is overblown.
"Some people like to make it partisan, and it's just not," he said. "You're building roads and dealing with crime and moving projects forward that create economic development."
In nearly four years in office, Begich has never vetoed an Assembly action.
Alex Crawford, one of at least two Alaska Libertarian Party members running, last year ran for U.S. House against Don Young. For him, the nonpartisan nature of the Assembly races is a plus.
"Without the political affiliation next to your name, people tend to stop thinking in absolutes, where they have to vote a certain way," Crawford said.
As for fundraising, Ruedrich said candidates have won Assembly races for under $50,000, though others spend well over $100,000. Metcalfe estimates a challenger should raise 50 percent to 75 percent of what an incumbent raises in order to compete.
Dittman said fundraising is key in Assembly races because the districts are big and you can meet only so many people face to face.
But Begich, who served three terms on the Assembly before being elected mayor, said walking the district can be pivotal. "It comes down to shoe leather, who is knocking on doors," he said.
Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins can be reached at khopkins@adn.com
