By RANDY RUEDRICH
April 29, 2026 – Paul Bauer was elected to the Anchorage Municipal Assembly in 2005. Bauer only served a single 3-year term in that East Anchorage Assembly seat, defeated in his 2008 re-election bid. Another conservative recaptured this East Anchorage Assembly seat in the 2011 Muni Election.
Bauer has served as an East Anchorage Republican District Chair for most of the last quarter century. He ran and lost East Anchorage State House Races in 2020 and 2022. Rather than working jointly with Jordon Harary as a Republican team to win this District 22 election, Paul encouraged Harary to terminate his campaign. Bauer only got 25% of district vote in 2022. Republican District Chairman Bauer did not even recruit a 2024 Republican District 20 candidate.
When asked about retaining his district chair position whilst running for office, Paul replied that retaining that chairmanship would assist his candidacy. He could not explain how this assistance/support could develop.
No other Alaska Republican District chair has retained his position whilst seeking a state office. A candidate has a full-time job engaging voters, media and the community. How can diverting candidate time and energy from that focus to a political district activity be a better use of a candidate’s energy?
Currently Bauer is chairman of District 20 Republicans. Assembly Districts 4 and 5 overlay District 20 in the current municipal assembly map. Neither Bauer individually nor his District 20 organization endorsed either Anchorage District 4 David Donley or District 5 Cody Anderson in the 2026 Spring election.
The Assembly District 4 race was highly contested. After the vote tabulation David Donley lost by 26 votes. The recount on April 24 reaffirmed the same 26 vote margin of defeat.
Where was District Chairman Bauer, who is howling about his intent to provide strong leadership to win future elections? He never responded to David Donley calls and messages. Bauer was AWOL during this entire 2026 Anchorage Municipal campaign.
Bauer’s District 20 turned out 31% of its Republican voters in this Muni Election. Nearly 37% of all Republican voters throughout the Municipality voted on this spring’s Muni Election. A minor 2% turnout improvement generates more than the 26 votes required for David Donley to become an elected member of the Anchorage Assembly. Even with a significant 4% District 20 under performance when compared to the Republican municipality turnout, Bauer would be joining Donley in claiming victory.
Finally, Paul Bauer is now running for Republican Party Vice Chair at next week’s Republican State Convention in Soldotna. Each District elects its delegates to the state convention. District 20 is authorized to send six delegates and six alternates to the State Convention. Any candidate needs supporters and votes at the state convention. Yet Bauer is the only District 20 delegate going to Soldotna.
Bauer again fails completely as a leader to organize his district delegation. Instead of going to State Convention with a loaded 6 shooter, Paul Bauer is going State Convention with his musket. He continues to demonstrate no leadership skills and should not be the Alaska Republican Party vice chair. No informed state convention delegate should vote for Paul Bauer.
Randy Ruedrich is the former chairman of the Alaska Republican Party.
12 thoughts on “Randy Ruedrich: Don’t vote for Paul Bauer for Republican Party vice chair. Here’s why.”
So, in other words, Paul Bauer is a typical do-nothing, get-nothing-done Alaskan Republican.
Sounds like he is perfect for the job.
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PS: “Whilst”? Why dost thou useth such un-American verbiage?
Haha, very good Mr. Jefferson. “If you don’t succeed. try, try again.” The reason I am still active after 25 years of political advocacy and involvement. I will keep trying until we have a change in the Party establishment before we lose to the Blue Wave.
I have a rebuttal to Ruedrich’s commentary if The Story will publish.
Don’t trust anything coming from the former chair of the AKGOP (Mr Ruedich) who served for 13 years. As he is throwing stones in a glass house, he is the reason why today’s AKGOP is in its disaster shape it is and he did nothing about replacing US Sen Murkowski nor telling US Stevans and US Congressman Young to make room for a new generation of Republicans to serve.
Before you start examining Mister Bauer under a magnifying class consider the critic criticizing him and his own poor leadership choices as AKGOP chair. Thirteen years is not a small tenure. That’s a lifetime for an organization and decides its direction.
In fairness
I do agree that Paul Bauer would be no better than the weak and party girl Carmela Warfield who does nothing to maintain legislature Republican leadership unity as the Republicans giving away power happened under her watch nor does she let alone supervise district presidents such as Bauer that they are doing the job they signed up to do
Thank you for your thoughts. My excuse is the redistricting area that came upon me in 2020. Understand that I am in a democrat controlled district. Dunbar, Wielechowski, and Andrew Gray who has a strong gay electorate behind him. I ran the numbers; we have a weak base of republican super voter. The numbers are tiny. However, you misjudge me. Make the comparison. I am running for Vice-Chair.
I will have a comprehensive rebuttal to Ruedrich’s brain fog. You will be enlightened.
Tina is absolutely correct. The king of he RINO’s is……wait for it……Ruedrich…(RR)…!
In my opinion, they all suck. I did see some strongly worded pro republican tweets from Warfield recently. Good job! Why can’t a state wide party keep Rs voting like Rs? Don’t tell me we have a big tent and we’re independent folk. 100% of Rs should be voting in every election!
Wow! Guess I’m not surprised that “Randy” is still around. He shouldn’t be trusted at all. He was part of and a big part of the group that completely stonewalled and lied about it when the gop people of Alaska voted someone other than Randy to run the GOP They refused to hand over anything to the newly voted board. Including the checking account. The new board couldn’t do anything without $$. It was a mess and they lied to us all and the people that we wanted out remained in charge. All that has conveniently been swept under the rug. This happened several years ago. I can’t be the only one who remembers it.
As a long time watcher of the political machinations that have created such havoc in my home, I’ll say what others have not: “Randy, it’s time for you to sit down and STFU!” Don’t be the R version of Kay Brown.
Problem with the commenters is that Randy makes a powerful point, that none of you address while merrily engaging in messenger shooting: As District Chair, Bauer presided over lower turnout in support of Donley than other District Chairs managed to get in the rest of ANC. If you can’t or won’t do your level best to get Republicans elected while District Chair, how can anyone possibly believe you will do any better as Party Vice Chair?
This job is about electing Republicans, something Paul Bauer just demonstrated he is not all that good at doing. Why reward failure?
Good job, Randy. Cheers –
Please pass the popcorn, as the Republicans keep eating themselves. They just don’t get it. Oh well it’s cheap entertainment.
Please pass the popcorn, as the Republicans keep eating themselves. They just don’t get it. Oh well it’s cheap entertainment.