Labor-backed committee pays $150,000 for Kreiss-Tomkins ticket ads

The Putting Alaskans First Committee, an independent expenditure group funded largely by labor unions, paid $150,000 for Meta and Google ads backing Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and his running mate, Anchorage Assembly Member Zac Johnson, for governor and lieutenant governor, according to a report filed Tuesday, Oct. 6, with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

The ads are scheduled to run Oct. 10 through Election Day, Nov. 3. The digital buy went to Blueprint Interactive of Arlington, Virginia, and a report filed Wednesday shows $24,000 more to the firm for creative work on the ticket's ads. The committee's Oct. 1 report showed $100,000 for radio ads supporting the ticket, plus $25,000 each for ads opposing the tickets led by Republicans Bernadette Wilson, Treg Taylor and Dave Bronson.

The committee is also spending in legislative races. Its Oct. 6 report shows it owes $98,933.90 to three Anchorage vendors for canvassing, phone banking and mailers for or against more than a dozen candidates, including mailers opposing Ken McCarty and Jamie Allard. It also paid postage for mailers supporting Ruby Jones, Danni Hall, Denny Wells, Cliff Groh, Brent Johnson and Gina Wall. Wednesday's report shows $2,000 each for digital ads opposing Harmony Tomaszewski and Frank Tomaszewski.

Through Oct. 2, the committee had raised $1.25 million and spent $658,000, with $602,000 left, its 30-day report shows. Its largest recent contributions came from unions, including $350,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on Sept. 29 and $175,000 from the NEA Advocacy Fund on Sept. 17. It also took in $20,000 from the Alaska House Democratic Campaign Committee on Oct. 2.

The committee is chaired by Kimberly Hays, political director of the Alaska AFL-CIO, which endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins on Aug. 27. Its treasurer is Joelle Hall, who led the Alaska AFL-CIO until August.

Outside groups are spending on both sides of the governor's race. The Republican Governors Association gave about $1.6 million to a new group, Kodiak PAC, that aims to boost Republicans, while a group called Forward Frontier for JKT brought in more than $1.3 million from the Democratic Governors Association, a group called Democratic Action and AFSCME, KTOO reported.