Matt Salisbury is the No. 4 candidate in Alaska’s U.S. House voting. Who is he?

Matt Salisbury is nan No. 4 campaigner successful Alaska’s U.S. House voting. Who is he?

Five years ago, Matt Salisbury moved to Alaska. Now, nan 30-year-old security adjuster and mean Republican is successful position to decorativeness among nan last 4 candidates successful nan title for nan state’s lone spot successful nan U.S. House of Representatives.

As of Thursday evening, Salisbury had 602 votes successful Alaska’s superior election, good down incumbent Democrat Mary Peltola, pinch 48,590 votes; Republican challenger Nick Begich, pinch 26,002; and Nancy Dahlstrom, 19,256.

Under Alaska’s predetermination system, that ballot differential doesn’t matter: nan apical 4 candidates successful nan superior predetermination beforehand to November’s wide election. 

Thousands of absentee and questioned ballots person yet to beryllium counted, but for nan moment, Salisbury is successful nan No. 4 spot, 55 votes up of John Wayne Howe, caput of nan Alaskan Independence Party. 

“I don’t cognize if I would opportunity I was expecting it,” Salisbury said erstwhile reached by telephone connected Thursday morning. “I believed that I would beryllium (in nan apical four), but I went successful pinch nary expectations.”

Salisbury has identified arsenic Republican since he was 18, he said, and he holds to nan accepted Republican Party belief that individual liberty is nan champion attack to government. 

But he besides brings a twist to that idea: Individual liberty isn’t possible, he said, without financial liberty. That requires constraining nan large businesses that mightiness squash free enterprise.

“It’s nary longer free to prosecute successful an endeavor if it’s conscionable held by a fewer corporations,” he said.

The pending merger of Kroger and Albertsons, 2 Alaska-based market stores, concerns him because it could limit title and consequence successful higher prices here.

“To genuinely beryllium a free society, we person to make judge that it’s a adjacent playing field,” he said.

When Salisbury thinks of awesome Republicans, he thinks of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, he said.

“At nan later constituent successful his career, (Roosevelt) wanted to conflict corporations connected behalf of nan people, and he divided from nan summons erstwhile nan statement didn’t want to clasp that change, and I’m not consenting to divided from nan Republican ticket,” Salisbury said. 

He said he sees a batch of group usage nan word RINO, aliases “Republican successful Name Only” for Republicans who don’t travel nan statement formation exactly.

“I want to opportunity I’m not a RINO. I’m a bull moose,” Salisbury said.

Roosevelt ran connected nan “Bull Moose Party” summons successful 1912, and Salisbury’s website, jointhemoose.com, features a computer-generated image of Roosevelt riding a bull moose. 

Salisbury’s elemental three-item level is aligned pinch his beliefs: extremity bottommost trawling, decently money Social Security, and extremity firm ownership of single-family homes.

Born successful Atlanta successful 1993, Salisbury grew up successful that metropolis and attended nan University of Georgia, majoring successful economics. 

During that time, wrote a thesis astir Alaska’s sportfishing manufacture and concluded that nan champion measurement to thief Alaska’s family fishers and nan declining salmon returns is to destruct bottommost trawling and nan bycatch that comes pinch it.

Salisbury supported Peltola 2 years ago, he said, but he was inspired to tally arsenic a campaigner this twelvemonth because he was disappointment with legislation she introduced successful May.

Peltola has tally arsenic a “pro-fish” candidate, but Salisbury said her attack to trawling isn’t substantial.

He said he doesn’t consciousness adequately represented by Dahlstrom, who “was picked by nan Republican establishment, which I deliberation is conscionable arsenic swampy arsenic everyone else.”

He besides doesn’t consciousness represented by Nick Begich, who comes from a longtime Alaska governmental family and is personally wealthy.

“He comes from a spot of privilege, and really tin personification for illustration that subordinate to maine and nan struggle that mundane Alaskans face? I mean, I’m talking to you connected my luncheon break,” Salisbury said by phone.

The erstwhile Georgian arrived successful Alaska for nan first clip successful December 2014 aft becoming infatuated pinch stories, movies and different media astir nan state, including nan illustration of Dick Proenneke.

Salisbury’s presence successful Alaska was unforgettable, he said. “It was my first achromatic Christmas ever.”

He spent nan wintertime successful nan state, but a family calamity meant he had to move away. 

“But nan bug ne'er left,” he said, “and connected a basking summertime time — 95 degrees — I made nan determination that it’s now clip to spell backmost to Alaska.”

He returned successful 2019, driving 12 days crossed nan United States pinch his dog, and he’s spent nan clip since past arsenic an security adjuster, walking crossed nan state.

“It’s been an absolute blessing to beryllium capable to spell done nan Kenai Peninsula, up done nan Interior to nan Western communities and down to Southeast,” he said.

He bought a starter location successful nan Matanuska Valley, adjacent to Finger Lakes, and sewage progressive pinch section groups, including nan Elks. 

“I emotion sportfishing — I’m not very bully astatine catching, though. … There’s thing astir nan conflict and past landing 1 that conscionable really gives you that adrenaline rush. I emotion hiking and I emotion unrecorded music,” he said. 

Reggae is his “bread and butter,” he said, but he likes almost everything.

“You’ll drawback maine dancing to ‘September’ by Earth, Wind and Fire; Kendrick Lamar; “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan … I conscionable person a very wide sensation successful what I like,” he said.

Salisbury’s clip successful Alaska hasn’t been wholly smooth. In 2022, aft a “phenomenal first date” successful Homer, he was pulled complete by constabulary for speeding and charged pinch drunken driving and possessing a limb while intoxicated.

“It’s shameful, and I’m not proud of it, but it was a correction that I made, and I ain it,” he said. “I did my punishment, and I’ve sewage my licence back.”

After he sold his starter location successful nan Mat-Su, Salisbury recovered it difficult to spend a caller house, and moreover rent was expensive. That acquisition caused him to reason firm homeownership arsenic a measurement to thrust down rent and lodging costs.

“I really deliberation that owning spot is simply a measurement to financial freedom, and I person concerns that we are being pushed into a spot wherever renters are being reduced down to numbers alternatively of people,” he said.

Salisbury said he’s concerned that nan national authorities is consenting to authorize spending increases for wars, including successful nan Middle East and Ukraine, but is reluctant to salary for services fixed to Americans, including Social Security.

“I person a difficult clip driving done Anchorage and watching group unrecorded successful tents and spell quiet and struggle pinch intelligence unwellness and addiction, and we person nary resources for these people,” he said.

When it comes to nan statesmanlike race, Salisbury said he isn’t endorsing aliases backing either Kamala Harris aliases Donald Trump.

He said he thinks it’s important to person nan expertise to activity pinch people, moreover if he doesn’t work together pinch them.

“Those are still Americans, they’re still our neighbors, and we tin beryllium respectful erstwhile we disagree, and we tin activity together done problems to make an amiable solution for everybody,” he said.

In his ain words

Salisbury answered nan Alaska Beacon’s 15-question campaigner study this week. You can read his responses alongside those of nan different U.S. House candidates online.

He’s besides answered Ballotpedia’s campaigner relationship survey. See here to publication much astir his background, including really Sept. 11, 2001, was his first governmental memory.