The Alaska Republican Convention started Thursday afternoon in Fairbanks, where reporter Liz Ruskin with Alaska Public Media is following it. Alaska Public Media News Director Lori Townsend discussed the convention with Ruskin on Thursday’s Alaska News Nightly, which you can listen to here.
Here are some highlights:
- About 400 people from around the state are at the Westmark in Fairbanks, and 160 of them are vying for 25 delegate slots to attend the national convention in Cleveland.
- Party Chairman Peter Goldberg said a national Fox News television crew is at the convention and hinted at big news. “I’m not going to tell you what Fox News is here for, but it’s going to be exciting,” he said. “Suffice to say Alaska, the massive state with such a small population, might have a bigger influence on the selection for the Republican nominee for the presidency, than you might think. And the rest of the nation may find that out tomorrow.”
- Ruskin thinks it has do with the state party’s rules binding delegates to a particular candidate, which affect whether Sen. Marco Rubio will be able to keep his delegates or not, even though he suspended his campaign. Under existing state party rules, those delegates must stay with their assigned candidate through at least two rounds of balloting in Cleveland. Ruskin thinks the State Central Committee is going to change those rules so the Alaska delegation will be more influential.
