Anchorage Daily News elevates fourth-place dropout’s whining in report targeting Jamie Allard

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 18, 2026 – The Anchorage Daily News published a lengthy and heavily biased report Friday portraying Rep. Jamie Allard as politically isolated and out of step with Eagle River voters — even though the incumbent Republican decisively led every challenger in her crowded August primary.

Official results from the Alaska Division of Elections show Allard received 1,965 votes, or 39.8%, in the five-candidate primary for House District 23. Democrat Jim Arlington finished second with 1,574 votes, or 31.9%.

False-flag Republican Ruby Jones (who donated to Bernie Sanders) received 688 votes, followed by Republican Nick Capozzi with 427 and Democrat Lee Hammermeister with 286.

Nevertheless, the ADN article devotes significant space to Capozzi, who received just 8.6% of the vote, finished fourth and subsequently withdrew from the race in embarrassment.

Capozzi is quoted calling Allard a “disruptive character” and claiming that, despite knocking on thousands of doors, he never encountered anyone who was firmly in her camp.

That assertion does not reconcile with the election results. Allard received more than four-and-a-half times as many votes as Capozzi and nearly three times as many as Jones. She also finished almost eight percentage points ahead of Arlington, her nearest competitor.

The article acknowledges that Allard “handily” and “comfortably” won the primary, but its framing repeatedly points readers in another direction. Allard is described as a “conservative firebrand” with a “hardline conservative approach.” Her opponents, meanwhile, are repeatedly characterized as more “collaborative,” “conciliatory” and “rational.”

The writer does not use politically neutral descriptions. Jones is allowed to describe her labor-backed campaign as one focused on communication and a “rational approach,” while Capozzi is given a platform to amplify his butt-hurt personal criticism of Allard after Eagle River voters overwhelmingly rejected his candidacy.

The article also says Allard’s conservative positions put her “at odds with voters,” but offers no polling or other evidence establishing that conclusion.

The available evidence is the primary itself, in which Allard won more votes than any challenger despite organized opposition and a crowded field.

Allard’s 39.8% does not mean she has majority support in a five-way race. The reporter is treating every vote for another candidate as a unified vote against the incumbent, without acknowledging that the primary voters and the general election voters are often a different mix.

There is also a larger political story embedded in the article: Organized labor is spending heavily to replace Allard with a candidate willing to join the Legislature’s Democrat-led bipartisan coalition.

The AFL-CIO plans to spend $100,000 supporting Jones. Jones also raised more than $64,000 before the primary, including substantial labor support and a $20,000 contribution from a Las Vegas executive connected to the Eklutna gaming hall. Allard raised $27,000 during the period cited by the newspaper. That was the executive who Jamie Allard threw out of her office last session.

Despite that financial disparity, Allard received nearly three times Jones’ primary vote total.

The newspaper could have led with that result: A conservative incumbent substantially outperformed a heavily financed challenger despite a coordinated effort to remove her. Instead, the newspaper built the story around complaints from Allard’s also-ran opponents, including the candidate who attracted only 427 votes before abandoning his campaign.

Allard did not respond to the ADN’s request for an interview. She is not alone in that; many conservative candidates will no longer speak to the newspaper due to its legendary liberal bias.

As for reporter Mari Kanagy’s background, her LinkedIn page makes clear her gender pronouns of she/her. Her publicly accessible professional pages identify her as an ADN reporter with previous work appearing in the Juneau Empire, Cascade PBS, and other publications. She served as an editorial intern with activist groups including the Prison Journalism Project.

This publication, The Alaska Story, leads with its conservative bent. We do not disown or try to conceal our point of view. Part of our beat is to expose what legacy media in Alaska will not admit — it is an arm of the Democratic Party.