Carol Hafner, a Democrat, is running for an Alaska U.S. House seat, but she doesn’t live in the state, nor has she ever even visited the state.
The Associated Press reports that Hafner listed addresses in New Jersey and South Dakota on her candidate filing, and says she’s not even going to campaign in person in The Last Frontier.
“Don’t lock me out just because I’m not a homeboy,” Hafner told the AP, adding: “You ought to be thankful that I care enough and I’m interested enough and passionate enough to want to make things better.”
She also said she wants “to do good in a place that I feel a kinship for.”
Hafner can legally run in Alaska despite not living there or even visiting, but she is unlikely to win the November election against Republican incumbent Don Young, even if she survives the Democratic primary. The U.S. Constitution stipulates that candidates have to live in the state they are running in at the time they are elected, but there have been some exceptions.
For example, a New York man ran against then-Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska in 2014 but was soundly defeated. And an Arizona man ran against Rep. Cynthia Lummis in Wyoming that same year, and also lost.
For her part, Hafner is just focusing on a social media campaign, hoping Twitter can win her the election instead of good old-fashioned human contact.
She may feel she has a “kinship” for Alaska, as she told the AP, but if she can’t even be bothered to visit the state to campaign, she likely won’t be able to convince many Alaskans of her authenticity.