In this strange election year, Republican members of Congress are still lukewarm about their party’s presumptive nominee for president, Donald Trump. Among Alaska’s congressional delegation, support for Trump these days is hovering between tepid and chilly.
Alaska’s sole House member, Don Young, said he might choose himself for president as a write-in. He could be joking about that. But Young sounded sincere when he said he’s not sure he can manage to vote for Trump.
“I don’t know. It depends what he does until the end of the election,” Young said. “If he does the correct things. I expect a lot of it will be, he’ll announce, I’m confident, who will be the cabinet members, which mean a lot. If he appoints people that I think can do the job, there’d be a strong possibility I might vote for him.”
Don Young’s gaffes
Don Young is no stranger to making colorful and inappropriate comments himself. He’s made the news in recent years for calling Latino farm workers “wetbacks,” talking about suicide and gay sex at a Wasilla High School assembly and calling federal money Alaska’s “sugar tit.”
Young said that possibility diminishes if Trump, in his view, continues to speak without thinking.
Sen. Dan Sullivan is less direct when asked how he feels about Trump. Sullivan said his attention has been on keeping the Senate in Republican hands. Also, Sullivan said the question should be how he feels about Democrat Hillary Clinton. With a little nudge, though, Sullivan talked about talking about Trump: “What I’ve said is, on issues where I disagree with Mr. Trump, whether it’s policy or statements that I think are appropriate, I will be forthright, when asked.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said last week she didn’t like Trump’s statements after the mass shooting in Orlando.
“To kind of come back and say, ‘We should ban Muslims,’ is not, in my view, the response to, again, a horrible, horrible tragedy,” she said.
Asked if she still supported Trump, Murkowski sounded less than sure.
“When it comes to the presidential elections, I’ve always been able to support the Republican nominee,” she said. “The good news is that we’ve got a lot of time before – maybe that’s not good news — but we do have a lot of time before this election and before the time when we have to vote.”
All three Alaska lawmakers said they like Trump’s energy policy, as he announced it at a recent speech in North Dakota. All three said Trump would be better for Alaska than Clinton would be. As Congressman Young put it, he’ll vote for “anybody but Hillary.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a sidebar with links to Don Young’s own controversial comments.
