For Justin Parish and Cathy Mu\u00f1oz, the race for House District 34 ends today.<\/p>\n
Election Day culminates a busy campaign for the underdog Democrat and the established Republican, each of whom spent a frenetic weekend knocking on doors and shaking hands. <\/p>\n
Despite their differences, the two candidates began that busy weekend the same way \u2014 with breakfast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coming in to a landing,\u201d Mu\u00f1oz told a supporter in a back room of Donna\u2019s Restaurant.<\/p>\n
Each weekend during the campaign\u2019s final month, Mu\u00f1oz volunteers fortified themselves with breakfast here before trudging out to knock on every residential door in the district. On this, the final weekend, campaign manager Matthew Gruening paid for 30 breakfasts before heading across Glacier Highway to the Rie Mu\u00f1oz Gallery, where Mu\u00f1oz has her campaign headquarters in a back room.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hectic. We\u2019ve got a big day today,\u201d Mu\u00f1oz said.<\/p>\n
On a paper map, Gruening used markers to outline routes for teams of volunteers. Each leaned over to get a closer look. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a \u2018lit drop\u2019; you\u2019re not knocking on doors,\u201d he said, handing out Zip-loc bags filled with campaign literature bound for doorknobs and doorstops.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to hit the most dense areas,\u201d he explained of his strategy.<\/p>\n
One volunteer interrupted with a question \u2014 \u201cWhere\u2019s my hat?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Gruening, at a loss, explained that there weren\u2019t any more to give out. After a pause, he then lifted his own hat and set it on her head. <\/p>\n
She smiled. \u201cI want souvenirs,\u201d she said, grabbing a handful of campaign buttons before heading out the door.<\/p>\n
A mile and a half away, Parish was enacting a similar scene in the community room of the Mendenhall Library. Where Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s volunteers fed themselves at Donna\u2019s, Parish and campaign manager Steve SueWing provided boxes of fresh fruit and pastries. <\/p>\n
Parish had fewer volunteers than Mu\u00f1oz, but they were just as enthusiastic. In the library, Parish also attracted passers-by who were interested in the happenings. As he posed for pictures, SueWing looked on.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake sure it\u2019s tilted to the left,\u201d he joked while Parish held a campaign sign.<\/p>\n
As Parish\u2019s group left the library, he began talking to a man who said he supports Donald Trump for President.<\/p>\n
Parish has said he supports Hillary Clinton, but made his case anyway. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can just get a bunch of honest people in government, we\u2019d do a lot better,\u201d he told the man, who listened politely.<\/p>\n
Parish explained that he might not be a billionaire, but like Trump, he\u2019s spent a lot of his own money on his campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cRunning for office has pretty much bankrupted me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said his goal has been to make people understand that the Alaska Legislature needs to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe agree, even people, very conservative people,\u201d Parish said.<\/p>\n
While Mu\u00f1oz headed from her headquarters to knock on doors, Parish\u2019s first stop was a Mendenhall Flying Lions fundraiser at McGivney\u2019s to shake hands. After that, he intended to go door-to-door himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are super-nice,\u201d he said of his experience. \u201cWe live in a polite town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both candidates spent Sunday repeating their Saturday pattern, then on Monday joined sign-waving details in the Valley and at the edge of downtown.<\/p>\n
Heavy, chilly rain and blowing wind didn\u2019t keep a hardy handful of volunteers from joining the candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not for the faint of heart,\u201d Gruening said.<\/p>\n
The same might be said for voters awaiting the result.<\/p>\n
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For Justin Parish and Cathy Mu\u00f1oz, the race for House District 34 ends today. Election Day culminates a busy campaign for the underdog Democrat and the established Republican, each of whom spent a frenetic weekend knocking on doors and shaking hands. Despite their differences, the two candidates began that busy weekend the same way \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":19798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19797"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}