A new Wasilla group spent $43,000 on six House candidates with D.C. money

A Wasilla group that registered with the state on Sept. 1 received $250,000 from a national Republican committee on Sept. 9 and spent $43,000 of it the next day supporting six Republican candidates for the state House.

Moving Alaska Forward disclosed the spending Friday to the Alaska Public Offices Commission. The money went in one check to Lurtsema Communications of Anchorage for Facebook and Instagram ads, mailers, printed cards, and door-knocking lists and walkbooks managed through i360, a commercial political data firm, about $7,000 per candidate. The six are Reps. Mia Costello, Julie Coulombe and Sarah Vance, all incumbents, and Dan Sager, John Boyle and Sheldon Prout. Each incumbent faces one opponent, a Democrat or nonpartisan.

The $250,000 came from the RSLC Victory Fund, the political arm of the Republican State Leadership Committee in Washington, D.C., and is the group's only reported money. The rest is unspent. Because all of it comes from outside Alaska, the group's mailers and ads are required under the 2020 voter-approved campaign finance measure to say so.

Independent expenditures are made without coordinating with the candidates. The group is run by John Richard Carr of Wasilla, who signed the report as both chair and treasurer. Carr also chairs Conservative Alaska, which spent his own money in the August primary against the Republican ticket of Bernadette Wilson and Michael Shower.

Outside money is not one party's practice. At an August hearing on a different ballot measure, Rep. Ben Carpenter said "roughly 6 out of every 7 independent expenditure dollars come from outside of Alaska." This is the first outside-funded expenditure group Alaska News has seen file for the general election; others will follow as the Nov. 3 election approaches.