Alaska's booth at Trump's 'Great American State Fair' draws online criticism

Photos circulating Monday and Tuesday showed Alaska's exhibit at Trump's 'Great American State Fair' as a display of printed panels, a patterned rug, and a single stool, with no state representative visible in any of the images shared online.

Dermot Cole, independent journalist and publisher of Reporting From Alaska, covered the exhibit, describing it as a "vacant booth at Trump's state fair flop." Cole wrote that what "really ties the room together is the tattered rug and the vacant stool with a piece of paper on it, perhaps a flyer proclaiming the Trump Golden Age of Alaska."

Other observers on social media echoed the criticism. One commenter wrote that even the Alaska State Fair in the 1990s, when the state was more isolated and less populated, drew better attendance than the event shown in aerial photos of the fairgrounds. Another said a fifth-grade classroom geography project on Alaska had been more elaborate.

Alaska has a long tradition of community-anchored fairs, including the Alaska State Fair in Palmer and the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines, which observers invoked as a point of comparison.

Whether the booth was unstaffed throughout the event or only at the moments the images were captured could not be determined from the photos and posts alone. No Alaska agency or official had responded to the criticism in the source material reviewed.