McGuire campaign says Sara Rasmussen will replace Elizabeth Rexford as lieutenant governor running mate

The deadline that could have thinned Alaska's crowded race for governor came and went at 5 p.m. Saturday, and only Matt Claman's ticket dropped entirely. Seventeen candidates remain on the August primary ballot — a dozen of them Republicans — even after a stretch in which some campaigns openly pressed their rivals to step aside.

The logjam was clearest on the Republican side, where no one in the packed slate dropped out. Josh Church, the running mate of former Anchorage mayor Dave Bronson, had posted a video earlier in the week urging other Republicans to clear the field. None did. Under Alaska's open primary, all of them land on the same August 18 ballot and only the top four advance — so a Republican field this large raises a real risk that GOP voters split their support and crowd one another out.

The one notable Republican move was not a withdrawal but a reshuffle. Lesil McGuire, the Republican former lawmaker, said Saturday she had replaced her lieutenant governor pick, Elizabeth Rexford, with Sara Rasmussen, a former Anchorage state representative. Rexford withdrew but will stay on as a policy adviser, McGuire said. The McGuire–Rasmussen pairing remains the only all-women ticket in the race.

The swap gives the campaign a reset, but not an easy path. McGuire entered late, filing on the final day candidates could register, and she and Rasmussen are now chasing the same moderate, persuadable voters already being courted by better-known names — former state senator Click Bishop and former Gov. Bill Walker, the only person in the race who has held the office. In a contest where rivals have spent months raising money and building name recognition, the problem a new running mate does not solve is simply getting noticed.

The deadline's one consequential exit came on the other side of the aisle. State Sen. Matt Claman, an Anchorage Democrat, withdrew, leaving former state senator Tom Begich and former Sitka representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins as the party's main contenders and giving left-leaning voters a lane to consolidate behind. It was the rare move that reshaped a lane rather than just rearranged a ticket.

With the slate set, the crowded field — and the vote-splitting it invites — is locked in for August.