AK-SEN: Alaska Senate Moves to Likely Republican
Since Alaska became a state in 1959, only eight senators have ever represented it in Washington. And only one of those — Democrat Mark Begich in 2014 — failed to win a second term, being ousted by Republican Dan Sullivan by just 6,014 votes in a GOP wave year.
Now, Sullivan is looking to continue the trend of electoral longevity instead of befalling the fate that he bestowed on Begich. And in a state that has only ever voted once for a Democrat for president (Lyndon Johnson in 1964) and that President Trump carried by nearly 15 points in 2016, Sullivan hopes to have an easier time. Still, an independent candidate running under the banner of and with the blessing of national Democrats who has a unique political pedigree is causing many to give this once-sleepy race a second look.
Al Gross, 57, was born and raised in Juneau. His father, Avrum, was a Democrat chosen by Republican Gov. Jay Hammond to be the state's attorney general in 1974. That was a controversial pick at the time, and in 2004 Hammond recalled that "a lot of folk cussed me out for appointing Av Gross," a "long-haired, hippie-type Democrat from New York." But Hammond defended that choice, seeing him as the best person for the job, and together the two helped establish the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. Funded in part by oil revenues, it's an amount paid out every year to legal Alaska residents (in 2019, it was $1,606). The younger Gross recalls discussions between the two unlikely political allies over establishing the Permanent Fund taking place sometimes at his family's dinner table. His mother, Shari, was involved in state politics too, becoming the first executive director of the United Fishermen of Alaska and founding the Alaska League of Women Voters.
Gross has said health care was a major issue that pushed him to run, and he's emphasizing his background as a doctor, magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, in that message. Gross went to Washington state to attend medical school, where he became an orthopedic surgeon, and where he also met his wife, Monica, who's a pediatrician. The two moved back to the state after residencies in Michigan, and Gross opened a practice in Juneau. He left that in 2013 though to get his Masters in Public Health, moving to Anchorage to become a consultant, where he helped spearhead efforts to add popular ACA protections for pre-existing conditions to Alaska law, along with Medicaid expansion. Gross is also a commercial fisherman, buying his first boat at the age of 14. As an intro video from top Democratic ad maker (and Anchorage native) Mark Putnam intones, he's also "killed a grizzly bear in self-defense after it snuck up on him."
https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/senate/alaska-senate/alaska-senate-moves-likely-republican
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