Eric Hafner, 35, is running to strip Alaska’s lone House seat away from Republican incumbent Rep. Nicholas Begich. But can he win? After all, Hafner is the only Democrat on the ticket, and midterms historically punish the president’s party.
There’s just one problem: Eric Hafner is nearly 3,000 miles away from Juneau, serving out a 20-year prison sentence in Otisville, New York.
According to U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger, Hafner repeatedly threatened elected representatives, judges, law enforcement officers, and private citizens.
“He further victimized these public officials, private citizens, and the public generally by calling in numerous false bomb threats to a courthouse, a police department, law firms, businesses, and an elected official’s office,” Sellinger said.
Reporting by The Blue Alaskan revealed that in 2016, Inmate #00932-005 told a police department that the officer who arrested him “deserves to get shot,” that he knew where the officer lived, and that the officer’s minor child would “get his head bashed in.”
Data from Ballotpedia suggests that just 3.8 percent of voters filled in the bubble next to this man’s name.
It is unclear whether these voters knew Hafner’s background. The ballot may have been a protest vote or a knee-jerk reaction to the “D” next to his name.
