Super Tuesday lives up to the adjective in Juneau

Sometime about 4:30 p.m., a man walked through the parking lot doors of Centennial Hall and uttered a single word: “Wow!”

“Don’t worry,” came a volunteer’s reply as the man surveyed a line of voters stretching the length of the building. “The line moves quickly.”

Juneauites joined the nation Tuesday as they surged to the polls in record numbers. Six hundred and eighty-two Republican voters cast ballots in Juneau, the most ever to participate in a Republican Presidential Preference Poll. There were 439 participants in 2012 and 482 in 2008, the first time the method was used. Juneau differed from the nation, however, in preferring Texas Sen. Ted Cruz over insurgent businessman Donald Trump.

At the Juneau polling station, Cruz received 237 votes; Trump garnered 198. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was third with 150 votes, while Ben Carson and John Kasich trailed with 60 and 37, respectively.

There was even a vote for Jeb Bush, as a voter dissatisfied with his or her choices had written the name of the former Florida governor on a ballot. The vote was not counted; Bush had withdrawn from the race.

The reported figures did not include out-of-district votes cast Tuesday, but those votes were not expected to appreciably affect the results.

While District 33 and 34 voted for Cruz, that wasn’t true elsewhere in Southeast Alaska, which had a plurality of voters pick Trump. According to figures provided by the Alaska Republican Party, 37.6 percent of voters in House District 36 – which includes Ketchikan and Wrangell – voted for Trump. In House District 35, which includes Sitka and Prince of Wales Island north of Hydaburg, Trump earned 36.3 percent of the vote.

Nationwide, Trump won seven states on Super Tuesday, extending his lead in the count of delegates pledged to the Republican National Convention. In Alaska, Cruz topped Trump with the support of Juneau’s votes. Statewide, when the final results came in just before midnight Wednesday morning, Cruz had a 577-vote lead over Trump.

Cruz had 36.2 percent of Alaska’s vote; Trump earned 33.6 percent. Rubio was third with 15.2 percent.

With 13 percent the minimum to receive any of Alaska’s delegates to the Republican National Convention, Cruz will earn 12 of Alaska’s 28 pledged votes. Trump will have 11. Rubio will take the remaining five.

In Juneau, turnout was highest between the opening of the polls at 3 p.m. and about 5 p.m., surprising organizer Connie McKenzie. “I thought it would busy from 4 to 5:30, and so I was really surprised that the line was to the other end of Centennial Hall at 3:15, but that was great,” she said.

Benjamin Brown, a former head of the Capital City Republicans, cast his vote and hurried home to watch the results come in. Before he left, he praised the volunteers – there were about 20 running the polls – and said things were running much better than they were four years ago, when the poll was held at the Juneau Yacht Club.

“I think this is a great venue,” he said. “It’s much better than the Yacht Club.”

Among the crowd Tuesday were Democrats who said they were switching their voter registration just for the evening in order to participate in the preference poll. They declined to speak on the record.

Volunteer Murray Walsh greeted many of the people who walked through Centennial Hall’s doors.

“It sure seemed like a lot of people,” he said.

After seeing the long line, McKenzie worried the polling place would run out of ballots, so she had another batch printed. Late-arriving voters received some of the new ballots.

“You hope for the best, and I think it was good,” McKenzie said after polling concluded.

The line in Centennial Hall steadily decreased throughout the night; by the time the final stragglers came in (mostly lawmakers leaving a late session of public testimony), they walked right in.

Reid Bowman came to the polls with his wife, Tami. While they declined to discuss who they voted for, Reid said he has voted as an independent before but was participating with the Republican Party for the first time.

“I wanted to have my voice heard,” he said, adding that abortion was his primary concern.

Jodi Pessolano was a Cruz campaigner in Juneau and cast her vote after hanging a poster advertising the Republican district caucus on Friday.

“I think he’s doing great,” she said of Cruz. “God willing, we can stop (Trump).”

Juneau Results (District 34 and District 33, Juneau-only)

Cruz 152+85 = 237

Trump 131+67 = 198

Rubio 90+60 = 150

Carson 45+15 = 60

Kasich 15+22 = 37

Total: 682

Haines (District 33)

Trump 26