With 13 percent of its nearly 670,000 residents considered Native, Alaska has one of the highest percentages of Native people of any state in the country.
It has long been hailed by Native leaders as a state where the Native vote can and does swing elections with the highest percentage of eligible Native voters of any state.
Now the Native residents of America’s largest state are wondering how Sen. John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate will affect their lives.
Like the hundreds of reporters, bloggers and Democratic strategists following this election, they are vetting Palin’s record on Native issues. And they are drawing varied conclusions.
“The Alaska population is pretty excited,” said Holly Miowak Stebing, a 20-year-old Inupiaq woman and Barack Obama supporter. “Within the Native population, it’s pretty mixed.”
The Anchorage woman got to meet Obama backstage at Invesco Field in Denver shortly before he took the stage to accept his party’s nomination for president. Stebing said the majority of her state’s Native population votes Democratic and likely won’t support McCain, despite Palin being on the ticket.
She criticized Palin for undermining causes she sees as beneficial to Alaska Natives, such as the governor’s opposition to a legislative proposition that would have stopped certain mining operations in the state from releasing toxic pollutants into water that would harm the health of humans or salmon. Stebing said salmon is important as a food and revenue source to Alaska Natives, but Palin opposed the measure, which was defeated Aug. 26 by more than 57 percent of Alaskan voters.
