In the 2000 election, 167,398 Alaskans (58.62%) voted for George W Bush against Al Gore. Four years later 190,889 Alaskans (61.07%) voted for Bush against John Kerry. Bush was popular among Alaskan voters-- who also backed John McCain (59.42%) and Mitt Romney (54.80%). But Trump isn't well liked by most Alaskans. He barely eked out a majority against Hillary-- 51.28%, pretty sad compared to Bush. And today it was widely reported that Bush had decided he will neither endorse nor even vote for Trump in November. Colin Powell, Bush's Secretary of State, told Jake Tapper on State of the Union that he "certainly can not in any way support" Trump this year and that Trump has "drifted away" from the Constitution, has been an ineffective president, and "lies all the time." Trump's response was to tweet that Powell is "a real stiff." He hasn't savaged Bush yet. None of this is going to make Alaskan independents more likely to back Trump. Independent voters decide who wins elections in Alaska.Right now, Alaska has two Republican U.S. senators-- Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, the former an independent-minded conservative and the latter a knee-jerk boot-licker for Trump. Sullivan, who is rumored to be considering dropping out of his reelection bid and allowing Gov. Dunleavey to take the GOP nomination so that he (Sullivan) can run for Governor in 2022, is in a toss up race against independent Dr. Al Gross, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Party. Murkowski isn't up for reelection until 2022. But she already has an opponent: Señor Trumpanzee.As we saw yesterday, she praised Jim Mattis' criticism of Trump and told a journalist she is "struggling" with the idea of backing his reelection. The most thin-skinned sociopath in American politics immediately flipped his wig and let loose with these two nasty, adolescent tweets:After embarrassing himself by attacking and threatening a senior Republican senator-- despite having promised McConnell he wouldn't do that in return for McConnell's unwavering obeisance-- Trump lavished praise on all the GOP senators most likely to lose in November because of his reverse coattails: David Perdue (R-GA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Steve Daines (R-MT) and, of course, Dan Sullivan. Sullivan is such a nonentity in DC that Trump couldn't even think of a single thing to say about him... so just retweeted 5 random Sullivan tweets from May 22, 23 and June 2.The Anchorage Daily News reminded its readers that "During the 2016 presidential campaign, both Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) called on Trump to drop out of the race after the release of a video in which the GOP nominee boasted in vulgar language about forcing himself sexually on women. Both said they weren’t voting for him at the time."This morning, Gross told me that "Alaskans appreciate when their elected officials take a stand and have a backbone. We can all respectfully disagree with one another, but at the end of the day, Alaskans want to be represented by independents-- people who aren't beholden to an orthodoxy, a party, or an ideology-- because here in Alaska if you can't think for yourself, you just won't survive. Dan Sullivan doesn't understand this because he doesn't understand Alaska. He's not from here, and has been solely focused on climbing the National Republican political ladder. I have zero interest in climbing any political ladder. My focus is on making Alaskans' lives better. That's my focus and always will be. I'm Always Alaska."
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