Alaska Dispatch Spends a Day on the Campaign Trail with AK State Rep. Lindsey Holmes '01

From the Alaska Dispatch:

One last word on the upcoming legislative races, and then I’ll stop until Election Day tomorrow. I spent some time with Anchorage Democratic incumbent Rep. Lindsey Holmes on Saturday knocking on doors. I did this because I was accused of writing a "glowing" piece about her challenger, Republican Anand Dubey...

Holmes is expected to win the race. She’s expected to win because she’s a good legislator -- she gets things done and she’s sensible. She’s a lawyer, so she knows how things work, and she works across party lines, so she knows how to get law -- whether they be about consumer protection bills, the construction industry, or a domestic violence victims -- passed.

She says she’s left-leaning on social issues, but more conservative on issues affecting businesses. In other words, she’s a lot like the district she represents.

But that’s not why she’s likely to win: She’s likely to win because she knows her neighborhood. She grew up in the neighborhood, went to school down the street, and when she moved back from graduate school -- she has a law degree from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in international relations from Stanford -- she  bought a house in the neighborhood.

She knows the cracks on the street. She knows the woods surrounding the area. She knows the tennis court, and she knows the schools. And, most importantly, she knows the people.

Indeed, if she had staged the response she got as she went door to door, it wouldn’t have worked out better for her. In the houses we visited where people were home, they all knew her -- some since she was a little girl -- and all said that she was doing a great job and that they planned to vote for her.

A car driving stopped, and the woman driving said that Holmes was increasingly looking like her mother, who died when Holmes was 16 years old from breast cancer. The neighborhood mourned. With Holmes' credentials, she could be working at any number of best law firms in the country. But she loves Alaska, and she loves her neighborhood and her mother’s memory, which floats softly through Holmes’ house, these things drive her.

"I don't need a fancy computer app," she said as we were walking. "What I need to know is my district." As if on cue, another car drove by, and another person waved.