Kelly Tshibaka: 0:08
Welcome to Stand. This is where we help make courage contagious. I’m your host, Kelly Tshibaka. I ran the Alaska’s Trump campaign this year, former candidate for US Senate, and I’m joined today by my best friend and husband, Niki Tshibaka. Welcome to the show, Niki.
Niki Tshibaka: 0:22
Thank you, kelly, it’s great to be here.
Kelly Tshibaka: 0:23
It’s great to have you here, excited to have you, and we are at standshow.org. You can be one of our standouts by following us there and catching any of our famous episodes, like with Bill O’Reilly or Ben Carson or Matt Whitaker, who was just appointed by President Trump to oversee NATO. Right, he’s the.
Niki Tshibaka: 0:41
NATO ambassador.
Kelly Tshibaka: 0:49
Our NATO. Right? He’s the NATO ambassador. Yeah, fantastic, so you can go catch all of those episodes. We are excited to have you become one of our standouts. Follow us on YouTube and social media. Today we have an exciting guest with us. We’ve had quite an election up here in Alaska this year. It is exciting and it is also confusing, and so we want to talk about it, because there are ramifications for what happens across the United States, including being one of the very valuable pickup seats in the US Congress. But we are excited to have one of our newest members to the Alaska State Legislature, Rob Yundt, who is one of our standouts. Rob, thank you so much for being with us on the show today.
Rob Yundt: 1:17
Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Kelly Tshibaka: 1:19
Yeah, we’re excited to have you. So you ran for the Alaska State Senate out in the Valley, mat-su Valley, wasilla and Palmer area. For those who are unfamiliar with Alaska, we wanted to ask you what inspired you to run against the incumbent, who held that seat for a long time in the Alaska State Legislature, david Wilson.
Rob Yundt: 1:38
Yeah, definitely nothing personal. I just believe that my positions and my policy beliefs were better suited for my community. I think David’s a great guy. It was never personal or anything like that.
Rob Yundt: 1:52
So there are some things that are very important to me and to my community that have not been being discussed in Juneau in the last few years, and I knew that I could be, I could change the narrative down there, that this one seat would change the narrative. Similar to you know, I didn’t grow up aspiring to do to be in politics at all. Right, I didn’t know that I was going to run for assembly in 2020 until a few minutes before I signed up or become the deputy mayor or anything like that. But I I did not like the direction we were headed as a borough, with local policies coming forward that would have changed our government format to match that of Anchorage’s, and I don’t think anybody out here would agree with that, and so when I signed up for that, it was last minute. I had no intentions of running for this seat until it really so.
Rob Yundt: 2:48
I had a fundraiser last year and a gathering for my reelection on assembly, and I had brought one person there. I’m friends with a lot of people in the legislature. I respect a lot of them, I think they’re great, but I only invited one person who was elected in Juneau to come Right, and she means a lot to me. I grew up with her son. What to come Right, and she means a lot to me. I grew up with her son. I really admire her. Her name is Shelley Hughes. I think she’s amazing, and so I invited Shelley because something that’s important to me I have four daughters, an amazing wife my ex-wife is one of my best friends, right. Like. That’s not common for a lot of people, but I’ve coached a couple thousand kids and I do not believe that boys should be intruding women’s bathrooms in sports, and it’s a strong belief system that I have and I am willing to fight for it. And so I invited Shelley to my fundraiser to give a couple hundred people an update on where she was at with trying to pass legislation to protect our daughters and wives Right.
Rob Yundt: 3:41
And it never really dawned on me that it would be something that I was willing to go fight for. I hadn’t thought about it, and one of the members in the crowd asked during questions have you ever thought about running for a statewide seat? And I had not, and I had just gotten home from Pennsylvania. I was down there at a wrestling camp for a couple of weeks with my son, my wife, my daughters, and so we have. Our family comes from Pennsylvania, and so I went to a family reunion. There was a couple hundred old minnows there and coddles, and so the minnows and the coddles have been in the valley for a while, right, but they all came from Pennsylvania, and everybody that came up to me that day told me their biggest, their parents’ and grandparents’ biggest regret in life was not following our side of the family to Alaska, because there was no opportunity left in Pennsylvania.
Kelly Tshibaka: 4:29
So here I am.
Rob Yundt: 4:30
I’m at this gathering for my assembly seat. Last year, I had just gotten home from what turned out to be more than just a wrestling camp and a coaching opportunity for me and my family. It turned into a very moving experience for me. I’ve met a lot of my family from the East Coast that I never met before, and every one of them regret or not their regret, but their parents and grandparents was that they didn’t follow our family to Alaska, and so I came back and I was really. It hit me pretty deep and I don’t want to see my amazing state become California right, and we’re at a time where you’re seeing boys compete against girls athletically every day.
Rob Yundt: 5:09
I’m an ex-professional athlete. I know the difference between a boy and a girl. I have fought in front of millions of people in Las Vegas. There is a difference between my two sons and my four daughters. It’s disgusting. And so I have Shelley at this thing. And then, all of a sudden, someone asked me have you ever thought about running for a statewide seat? And I said I just spoke from the heart. I didn’t know he was going to ask me that and I paused for a moment. I said you know, if they can’t figure out this issue, then I’m going to take somebody’s job.
Rob Yundt: 5:34
So how do you, how do?
Kelly Tshibaka: 5:35
you hope to do that now that you’re in Juneau and you’ll be in a minority with us? Well, they call it a bipartisan caucus, but really it’s a bunch of Republicans who vote 90 percent of the time or more, with extreme liberals. I would call them squad liberals, like Forrest Dunbar. What do you hope to do?
Rob Yundt: 5:57
I. I want to give everybody a blank slate and benefit of the doubt. Right Like I, I’m going into it like common sense is something that should be past 61 to 0, right Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but I’m not going to adjust my moral compass or my district’s moral compass for anybody else. So I will pursue things that I believe to be common sense. And you know, on a national stage. You’re starting to see. Of course, they didn’t do very well. Democrats did not do very well nationally and I’m grateful for that, because I don’t think they have a game plan that works for our country right now. I hope that they’ll come back to that and we’re starting to see it.
Rob Yundt: 6:34
And what I mean by that is old school Democrats, right, our parents and grandparents’ generations. They could balance a budget, they believed that you couldn’t have a country without a border, they knew the difference between their sons and their daughters, and so on and so forth. They were really good people. They voted blue mainly because their jobs told them to. Does that make sense? They’ve been pushed out of the party. Their voice has been taken away. There is a lot of really good Democrats in this country that don’t have a voice in it, right? Guess what? They just voted for Trump, right? They voted for Trump because he’s giving them a voice. And so now you’ve seen, since the election, a lot of elected Democrats were standing up and saying we lost because of these radical, woke agendas. And they’re members of Congress, elected members of Congress, democrats, who are saying we need to protect our daughters, right?
Rob Yundt: 7:27
So I’m going to treat everybody in Juneau with the utmost respect. I don’t ever attack anybody by name. I attack bad policy. I have no problem with that. But you’ll never hear me mention someone else’s name. I hope they give me the same respect. I am going to move legislation. I will run a bill to protect my daughters and their daughters and granddaughters and nieces and wives. So, as far as who may or may not push back on that, I haven’t put any thought into that because, again, I’m going to give everybody an opportunity to to help with common sense and I want their voice, I want their opinion on that, I want everybody’s opinion on this, right. So we’ll where it goes. But as far as the you know the long game for Alaska guys, I’m in the driver’s seat, they’re not. They just got rejected at a national level, big time.
Kelly Tshibaka: 8:15
Yeah, let’s follow up on that. So what’s your take on why did our state vote overwhelmingly largest majority ever for Trump? We flipped our House seat back to Republican with Nick Begich, which is a huge win for Congress, and then down ballot, though, we voted to flip Juneau blue, and in the House and in the Senate. What’s your take on that? Why did that happen?
Rob Yundt: 8:39
I’ll tell you exactly why, and I’m not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings, but we have no message on education. Conservatives have no message on education. I have a message right. I was three times I was put in this position to lower funding for education in the Mat-Su Borough. I never did it. Once I helped. Rather than lower funding, which I refuse to do, I wanted to help make it more efficient and stretch farther. Does that make sense? I have a bill that I’m going to run that will empower teachers to help make more decisions in their classroom as well, coming up that I don’t want to go into too much detail on this right now, but that I think will make sure the money’s spent better. Does that make sense? But my message on education has always been we need to duplicate what they’re doing in Florida and Mississippi, and if I lived outside of the Mat-Su borough in any other part of Alaska, I would be trying to duplicate what the Mat-Su borough has done with education, because we are by far the shining star in Alaska. In fact, our test scores have risen so much in the last five years, and the last three years specifically. We’re now starting to lift the entire state of Alaska right compared to other states nationally, and so I think we can come together as Republicans and Democrats and solve this problem. I really believe that in my heart.
Rob Yundt: 9:54
I don’t think there’s anybody down there from either side of the aisle who are ill-intentioned. Everybody wants to help our children. Everybody wants high test scores. How do we get there? Well, we’re not going to get there doing status quo what Alaska has been doing because we’ve never tested well. Right, we’ve made no improvements other than the Mat-Su barrel, right. So what can we do that would work.
Rob Yundt: 10:17
Well, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Let’s go find somebody that’s done well and duplicate their success. Right. This is what we’ve been around for, you know, as a country for hundreds of years. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Find someone that did a good job and do what they did. That’s ford and mississippi.
Rob Yundt: 10:30
And so I had a message the whole time. I don’t think we as a party had a message. That’s why we lost. That’s why we lost. So, in some of these races in in the house specifically that were so close, good people that lost, great people, phenomenal candidates I never heard him talk about how to solve the education problem one time. So I think, I think what’s going to come out of this will be good in the long run.
Rob Yundt: 10:58
I’m in my early forties, so I can play the long game right Like I’m. I do not intend to be a lifetime 40-year senator. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I am telling you is in 2031, we’re going to adopt our next map and the Mat-Su borough is going to go from nine seats out of 60 to 11 or 12. And I can tell you right now we are the common sense conservative area in the state and when we become a much bigger piece of the pie for the legislature, the Mat-Su borough, the state, and when we become a much bigger piece of the pie for the legislature, the Matsu Borough is going to take over state politics, starting in November 2032.
Kelly Tshibaka: 11:29
I think that’s right. Yeah, there’s a. There’s an obvious shift happening across the country where we see the mass of Americans rejecting policies that have not been working and electing candidates who are going to do what’s best for working Americans and for families across the country, and I think we’re going to see that in Alaska as well.
Rob Yundt: 11:48
I appreciate what you’ve said. The Kenai Peninsula is a very conservative common sense area.
Kelly Tshibaka: 11:53
right yeah, rob, let’s pick up on the other side of this break. You’re on stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaja. We’re talking with Rob Yundt. Stand by, we’re going to pick up on the other side of this break. I know that Niki’s got questions for you too. Stand by, we’ll see you in a minute.
Speaker 4: 12:11
Jeans, chrysler, jeep, dodge and Ram trucks Providing the cars, trucks and SUVs that keep us working, keep us playing, keep us moving forward. And for over 75 years Jeans has been helping keep us connected Jeans, chrysler, jeep, dodge and Ram, the official dealership of Life in Alaska. Together we are strong. In Fairbanks and online at jeanschryslercom.
Kelly Tshibaka: 12:41
At Holquist Homes, they believe in providing the highest level of quality at the lowest possible price. Over 40 years and 4,000 homes later, value and pride continue to be the core of their philosophy while building for Alaskan families. They currently have a variety of new developments in South Anchorage, upper and Lower Hillside and Eagle River. At Holquist Homes, they value the satisfaction of their buyers by building homes that their buyers are proud to own. Holquist Homes. They value the satisfaction of their buyers by building homes that their buyers are proud to own. Holquist Homes.
Niki Tshibaka: 13:16
You are back on stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. We are talking to newly minted state Senator Rob Yundt about his plans as he gets ready to move into the Senate. I want to backtrack a little bit, though, and talk a little bit more about your race. It was a trifecta upset in the Mat-Su Valley. The Matsu Valley, not only did you overturn incumbent Dave Wilson, but school board member Jubilee Underwood took the seat from David Eastman, who was another conservative legislator, and Elexie Moore won Jesse Sumner’s vacated seat against well-known Valley resident Craig Menard. So wondering just how did the three of you work together to accomplish that? Because I think that could be perhaps a pattern and a strategy that others could consider the next go around to see if we can get better results.
Rob Yundt: 14:14
Yeah, I don’t know that my strategy is one that ones are going to want to duplicate, but I’ll speak to my strategy real quick and and how it may have affected all three of us, and so, um, I’m not a fan of rank choice voting.
Rob Yundt: 14:27
I want to go back to the very best Republican versus the very best Democrat. I don’t think you’d get anywhere in life. Uh, we did not put a man on the moon years ago with average ideas, right? I don’t want average, I want the best of the best. So, but with that being said, we live in a ranked choice world, and so when there’s only three people in these races, or four or whatever, they’re all going to the final round.
Rob Yundt: 14:49
Anybody that knows me well knows I do not miss coaching kids for anything. Well, I needed five weeks this summer to travel to Iowa and in different states and to coach a bunch of kids from Alaska and get ready for nationals. So I’m not going to miss that for anything. Campaign aside, I don’t care. I’m a coach and so I want to help kids.
Rob Yundt: 15:06
So I left, I didn’t put out any signs, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t knock doors, I was coaching children, and so I get home and we’re right up against the 30-day report coming out and I told my wife. I said, before I knock a door, before I put a sign out. I want to look at the 30-day reports and it was clear to me when I seen my opponents, the incumbents 30-day report, where all the money was coming from special interests, that I wasn’t going to do anything before the primary. And I know that sounds crazy, but I told my wife I said I’m not going to do anything because I don’t want to motivate these organizations to give him more money. I’m going to bomb the primary on purpose and so for fun. I put out signs two days before the primary, just for fun, so I could split test. I love analytics. I built two businesses from the ground up. I love to look at numbers. I put them out in one small area and it looked like I got my butt kicked in the primary when really I took first place in all four precincts where I had out signs right and only had them out for two days.
Rob Yundt: 16:08
So Wednesday morning I woke up and I put signs everywhere so that my opponent would not be able to tell what I did right, so that he wouldn’t catch on to the fact that, wow, that’s what happened Right. And so where he, where he had some signs, people realize most people didn’t even know I was running Honestly. I mean, I’ve born and raised here, my mom was born and raised here, my great grandpa, right, we’re all here for a long time and I’ve coached a couple thousand kids in this community. Most people didn’t know I was running, so it was an odd strategy. I know that. And then I went to work after the primary with the intentions of getting, you know, 50 plus points in the first round, and so I would say that probably affected the girls as well. You know that probably we were all using the same political consultant and I was gone. I don’t want to say I was being lazy, I was being strategic and helping kids, so it probably affected all of us a little bit. The bottom line is, those girls outworked their opponents and as did I, and we didn’t barely outwork our opponents, we significantly outworked them. Right, it wasn’t even close.
Rob Yundt: 17:10
I made a lot of errors in my. If I had to do this over again, I could have done way better. I learned as I went in 2020, like I said, I little assembly race, um, I ran at the last minute. I didn’t do anything right Cause I had no consultants to help me in 2023. Last year, when I was running for your election on assembly, I didn’t have an opponent, so this is my first campaign, this is the first time. It is Jubilee’s, first time to where it’s a real campaign and it was Elexie’s and so we all made a lot of mistakes. We’re all way better now than we were.
Rob Yundt: 17:42
Um, but it basically came down to hard work. It came down to hard work and so I knocked uh, between my wife and I and volunteers, I would say we hit close to, if not 10 000 doors, and my wife I need to put this out there right now my wife is the MVP of this my wife hit 5,000 doors. Wow, she personally hit 2,000 doors and every door she hit in District 28, she talked about me and she talked about Alexi. And every door my wife hit in 27, she talked about me and she talked about Jubilee. And I have nothing against either of their opponents any one of them. I like Steve Menard. I think he’s a great guy.
Rob Yundt: 18:20
I think, he’s a great guy. I like David Eastman. I have nothing against David. He ran years ago on a platform of term limits and he’s been there for eight years and he’s got a lot of great ideas, but he hadn’t passed no legislation. So when you have a school board president standing there at your door because she hit the doors Jubilee hit the doors you have the school board president who says I took boys out of girls sports. I took boys out of women’s locker rooms, which was happening in our local high school, one of them, right. We had an 18 year old boy using the girls bathroom, right. So she fixed these problems in a matter of a couple of years. And um, and she’s running against someone that’s been in Juneau for eight years and had never passed a piece of legislation. He’s a great guy.
Rob Yundt: 19:04
I’m not being negative, I’m just being honest. People want results. They don’t want people to sit there and spin their wheels. So when you got Jubilee Underwood standing at your door showing you results I mean it was I can’t believe she didn’t win by 20 points. I think she didn’t because she didn’t start doing anything until after the primary. None of us did. We didn’t do anything until after the prime.
Niki Tshibaka: 19:24
So what I’m hearing? There’s a lot of uh, a lot of hard work yet to out outwork your opponents significantly, but you also all had each other’s backs. You were, you were promoting each other, basically, uh, making it so that each of you was knocking doors, even when you weren’t knocking doors yourself physically, because you had one of the other candidates also sort of plugging your name as well, and I think I love that kind of teamwork in a camp, in sort of the campaign season. It’ll be great to see that kind of teamwork continue into and bleed into the next legislative session in Juneau, which is what I get.
Rob Yundt: 20:01
You’ll get a kick out of this, because I know you two are. I mean, look at you’re best friends, you’re running a podcast together. It’s so cool, right? I worked District 28 mainly and my wife worked District 27 mainly, right, it was just for whatever reason, it’s what worked best for our family. It worked best for me coaching because we live over here in District 28. And so it was easier for me to still hit practices, and it was nothing against District 27. I love 27. In fact, that’s where I grew up, right, but I currently live in 28. I coach over here, so it was best for our family. But my wife hit 27 and worked that one the most, and I hit 28. And we did bigger numbers in 27. And worked that one the most, and I hit 28 and we did bigger numbers in 27.
Rob Yundt: 20:43
So my wife likes to remind me that she did a much better job than me. And so, yeah, she was out there working very hard, and my wife doesn’t have anything against who Jubilee was running against, she just wants results. It’s important to her that we protect our daughters and we need a legislature that gets along. We need a legislature that can work together and do that, and my wife is very grateful for everything Jubilee did as our school board president. And so my wife went to bat. I stayed in district 28. Trenitie went to district 27. And I mean, she’s a workhorse man, she’s not like, she’s an animal.
Niki Tshibaka: 21:15
Thank God for for spouses who are such great supporters and work with us to achieve our dreams.
Niki Tshibaka: 21:21
Yeah, so, but, but. But moving forward from the campaign season, we’ve only got a few minutes left in the segment, but I want to ask you and you’ve sort of touched on this a little bit, you know, you, you already have clearly a good sense of what you want to do when you move into that legislative session in Juneau. I’d like to ask you about what some of your goals and priorities are. You’ve touched on education and the whole bathroom issue, which is a big issue, and, you know, making sure that sports are divided along gender lines. Maybe talk a little bit more about some other things that you want to do, and I’d like to ask you about that in the context of.
Niki Tshibaka: 22:01
You know, here in Anchorage you may have been following, you know, our assembly doesn’t seem to have recognized what’s happened on a national level and even on a state level here about people wanting to see more common sense policies, and what we’ve just learned is they’ve passed legislation to apply a tariff to a lot of goods now coming into, uh, into alaska, and of course, that cost is going to be passed on to the consumer and it won’t just be people in anchorage, it’ll be people across the state who are who are taking on these goods, and so we’ve got that combined with a ballot measure, one that just got passed, that’s increasing the minimum wage and requiring paid sick leave and those kinds of things, and so with all of that combined we could see major inflation happening or cost of living increases here in Alaska, even as it’s going down with this incoming administration no-transcript.
Rob Yundt: 23:20
I think they’re going to be great for the budget in the Mat-Su borough, because we’re already getting calls for people that want to dock over here Right Tariff away, because when stocks start shipping or coming over here when we’re buying a massive crane right now, like the crane’s already been ordered, it’s on the way we will be prepared. And so when we start doing much more revenue at the at the port which we did do during my four-year assembly, I helped grow that immensely Well, that’s more money in our general fund, and then we can lower our property taxes even more, which we’ve done a lot since I was elected locally, right. So, yeah, I don’t think that hurts the Matuburo in the short run. It might hurt us a tiny bit tomorrow, but in the long run I will tell you that’s going to help us immensely. So I hope they just keep doing what they’re doing in there. It’s great for us. Um, not so good for us, though, rob. Yeah, well, you know it, uh, it uh. There’s still. There’s still great places left to build out here.
Rob Yundt: 24:15
So it uh, we, you know other things that I I want to do. I could go on about education all day and duplicating the success that we’ve had out here. I’m very passionate about that. I want to help children statewide with good opportunities to get their hands dirty in high school, because you got to talk about the three E’s of education and I talk about this all the time. But if you’re not enlisted and you’re not enrolled, then you need to be employable, right? So if a young man or young lady is not going into college or she’s not going into the military, then what’s that leave?
Rob Yundt: 24:47
The bulk of the children don’t go to one of those two areas. A majority of them go into the real world and they need to be employable. So, career and technical education has we more than doubled that in my four years out here? And I want to do that statewide and help these kids find something that they really enjoy in high school, that they’re passionate about. I don’t care if that means being a hairstylist or doing makeup or nails, or if that means being a cook. It could be anything. You don’t have to be an electrician, right. It could be anything. But let’s let these, let’s help these children touch those things in high school, so they’re ready for the real world, right?
Niki Tshibaka: 25:21
So so education, it sounds like, is going to be a really big thing for you, which I think is fantastic. Hey, I want to pick up with you on this. On the other side of the break, because we just ran into a hard, hard break, you’re watching, stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka, looking forward to more of our conversation with Rob Yundt. Don’t go away, stand by. Welcome back to Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. We are talking with Rob Yundt, a newly minted state senator here in Alaska. Rob, you were just talking about what your priorities are going to be when you move into the legislative session in Juneau. Coming up, you talked about education and the three E’s of education enlistment what do you say? Employability and what was the third Enrollment?
Rob Yundt: 26:13
Enrollment. You’re not going to be enrolled in college or enlisted in the military. They need to be employable.
Niki Tshibaka: 26:18
I like that, the three E’s. So what else are some of?
Rob Yundt: 26:23
the priorities. You’re thinking about Our game game management in Alaska. So I’ve probably done more hunting in my life than most in the legislature other than Mike Cronk. Mike’s definitely got me right now, but I’m going to catch him, trust me. So I spend a lot of time in the woods. Mike’s definitely got me right now, but I’m going to catch him, trust me. So I spent a lot of time in the woods.
Rob Yundt: 26:41
It’s been really sad and hard for me to watch our sheep populations deteriorate during my lifetime. So we need to step up. The legislature needs to solve this problem. It’s a bipartisan issue. I think we’ll work very well together. I got some great ideas on that and some good real world experience that I helped bring to the table. On that Lands. The state controls 60% of the Mat-Su borough. The feds control 60% of the state, and so all of the boroughs are having an issue with affordable housing. And you got to remember the state of Alaska does not pay property taxes to local municipalities to help with education or road. So I will absolutely run a bill asking the state of Alaska to give back 5% of the acreage in every borough municipality, things like that. Give it to the local government, give it to the Mat-Su borough, the municipality of Anchorage, kenai, peninsula Borough, Fairbanks, whatever, and then they can turn around and auction it off to the citizens, which will bring down the cost of land and help house make housing more affordable.
Rob Yundt: 27:41
Timber Bill Clinton shut us down on timber 1999. We’ve done 15 times more timber harvesting in the Mat-Su borough since I was elected out here than we had before. The state is ready for a match. I mean we’re. There are so many areas. We’ve seen the big fire down on the peninsula a couple of years ago. That was. There was a gentleman down there, a timber harvest guy. They had been begging the state to harvest that for years and then boom, it all burned up. So sad right Now that we can self-grade lumber in Alaska, which most people don’t know about, we can actually start creating our own products here and have them be legally allowable to go into homes so we can bring down the cost of housing.
Rob Yundt: 28:15
With that Plus we can create jobs. Timber used to create 4,000 jobs a year in Alaska prior to Bill Clinton doing what he did in 1999. We’re down to about 60 to 100 jobs. So there’s an and we didn’t even use to be able to self-grade. So I think we can go past the 4,000 jobs we used to have, so there’s a real opportunity there to help our budget and our economy and fight inflation. So I got a lot of stuff that we’re going to be working on. I’m very, very, very, very organized and I have a lot of bills that I’m already working on that are bipartisan, common sense, going to help every single one of us. You’re never going to see me attacking anybody. You’re never going to see me trying to run radical agendas. I am going to be running common sense stuff that will help everyday Alaskans.
Niki Tshibaka: 28:59
Yeah, I mean, that’s everything I’m hearing right now is all really commonsensical stuff and it should be by part, it should get bipartisan support. You know you would think what you believe and sticking by it, but also just that, that approach of I want to put forward things that should be, uh, acceptable and agreeable to both sides because they’re good for all all alaskans. The only arguably controversial thing that I’ve heard you talk about that really, let’s be honest, shouldn’t be that controversial is uh, boys, boys, sports, girls and girls sports, boys and boys bathrooms girls and girls bathrooms.
Rob Yundt: 29:45
It’s going to get way better because they’re starting to eat their own. Look, I have friends from every walk of life. One of my closest friends is a gay man. Right, I don’t care, it’s none of my business what somebody does in their wedding chapel. What somebody does in their bedroom, I don’t care, none of my business does in their wedding chapel. What somebody does in their bedroom, I don’t care, none of my business. And I don’t think the government should care. But the agenda has gotten so far left from just this crazy minute small group of people. And now you’re starting to see them reject that because they’re realizing this is radical when people are rejecting it. Girls have been voting in America for over 110 years. They’ve had Title IX for 52 years to give them their own sports. We can’t take all of the way. That’s what Iran did. Iranian women were free in the seventies. Now they’re not. That happened in 1979, right, like that was not very long ago. We cannot let that happen here.
Rob Yundt: 30:33
We have to protect our wives and our daughters and so I don’t think it’s controversial, and I, because I have friends from every walk of life and family members from every walk of life I don’t think I’ll be seen as being, you know, partisan on that. It’s not at all. I have four daughters and two sons and I’ve coached a couple thousand kids and I know the difference and that’s all. It is right. I love every man, woman and child on this planet. I don’t care what color your skin is, how much money you’ve got, I don’t care about any of that. You know what your love preferences are. It means nothing to me. And so, yeah, I’m going to do things that protect all of us and help all of us economically. That’s that’s where I’m going to be focused.
Niki Tshibaka: 31:15
Yeah, and you know you’re talking about respecting the dignity of, of everybody, and and, and the way that all of that has been framed is you can’t respect somebody’s dignity unless you accept, you know, that radical version of how, how gender, uh, and or should gender should collapse in on itself, and um, again I’ve come, it comes back to. Your common sense approach is like we know what biology says and so we’re going to stick with that, but we can still respect the dignity and the sanctity of the lives of the people who suffer with gender dysphoria. It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game, so I love it.
Kelly Tshibaka: 31:52
Yeah, rob, I’m really happy that you ran and that you’re going to be in the Senate. You’re going to be doing really good things. I wanted to ask you what advice would you give for other Alaskans who are thinking I’d really like to make a difference in the state too. They might be thinking or be inspired to potentially run for maybe a lower level office, like something in their community council, or maybe school board or maybe they just want to get involved and do something to make a difference. What advice would you give them?
Rob Yundt: 32:18
Yeah, call me. Call you like, reach out, we’ll help you. I don’t I mean that like my phone’s on 24 seven. Uh, reach out to your local Republican party. We are the party of common sense, we are the future. Um, we are not divisive. Uh, we love everybody, we’re trying to help everybody, and so, um, I want to get back to a time too. By the way, I I’m not anti-Democrat at all. I can’t wait until the Democratic Party goes back to the old school JFK desk, because we have a lot of great what I call JFK Democrats in this country old school, our parents and grandparents generation and some of the youngers. And I can’t wait till someday the Democrat Party can say they’re the party of the working class American again. Because they’re not. They haven’t been in a long time. If they stop going so far left, they come back to the middle. It helps all of us, right. But right now I would say, if you’re interested in that, reach out to your local Republican party or call me 232-8340. Find all the answers. Shoot me a text, I will help you.
Rob Yundt: 33:17
I’m very passionate about this In politics. The closer to home it is, the more it affects your life. Our school boards mean more than anything. In my opinion, they’re. They’re the ones helping our babies. Right. To me, the school board is more important than anything we’re doing right. Local city councils it means the world. Local assemblies it’s a big deal right. And so, yeah, call me if you need help. Shoot me a text message, reach out to your local Republican party. I’ll do anything I can to help you.
Kelly Tshibaka: 33:47
I think that’s good. Another question I have for you. This was on the ballot here in Alaska, across the United States, in every jurisdiction where they tried to pass rank choice voting and these jungle primaries where anybody can run without being vetted. It failed, except for in Washington DC and here in Alaska we tried to overthrow rank choice voting. All of the donations that came in were from Alaskans and they put in $14 million to keep rank choice voting in these crazy primaries. We had a violent felon from New York on our final ballot, running for Congress. We had a actress from California who posed as a pretend Alaskan running for US Senate in the last election and it looks like that initiative barely passed. We have 700,000 people registered to vote in Alaska, something like that, and the initiative passed by about 650 votes. So they’re going to keep rank choice voting in Alaska, even though it was 146 to one that the the ballot measure was outspent right, 146, uh to one. Outside money to keep rank choice voting to the $1 Alaskans could put in. What’s your take on all that?
Rob Yundt: 35:00
All right. So before I like I’m I’m a very open and honest guy and I I will speak positively about something if I like it. So there is one small thing I like about rank choice and there’s a whole bunch that I don’t like. So I want people to understand I don’t. I’m not looking at this as like what’s a political position. I’m looking at this as just my personal beliefs. I like that the governor and Lieutenant governor get to choose each other. So only thing about Ranked Choice I like is I’m in the team building business. You know that it’s the athletic side of me so they get to choose one another and run together and they don’t get paired together later Maybe not like each other. Beyond that, the rest of it’s absolutely terrible.
Rob Yundt: 35:36
I worked with handicapped kids for three years in high school I was an aid for Mr Ouellette’s program at Wasilla High School. There are a lot of people amongst us that we don’t know and don’t realize when you’re in the grocery store or driving down the road. But there are people in our society that have really severe learning disabilities and you may not even know it right. It’s not any different than any of us. They have a hard time processing and stuff, and so this really is a really hard system for them to understand. The other thing is it’s really hard on our elders. I love my dad and my dad may watch this and he’ll get a chuckle out of this. If I have to text my father in his mid-70s how to remember to vote, that’s not a good thing. It’s not fair, it’s not right and we’ll be there soon.
Rob Yundt: 36:22
So you’re disenfranchising. When you take those two groups that I just talked about, you’re disenfranchising 15% to 20% of Alaskans every day. For the rest of time, it’s terrible. Beyond that, it disgusts me that $14 plus million from out-of-state left-leaning organizations was sent in here by the helicopter loads to trick us right. They should be ashamed of themselves. The fact they didn’t win by 20, 30 points after spending $14 million goes to show you it’s a terrible system. The only reason they won by this is because they actually made it so confusing for some people. They were telling people if you’re a veteran, you’re not going to be allowed to vote in the primary after this. Are you kidding me?
Kelly Tshibaka: 37:09
Lies.
Rob Yundt: 37:10
Lies, right, Disgusting. You’ll never be able to get an abortion if this passes. They brought abortion in. This has nothing to do with abortion. This has to do with. There are people out here that live amongst all of us who are darn good people, who are not that young or maybe have learning disabilities, and this disenfranchises them in an always will rank. Choice is not new. It’s been around for a hundred years and tried in multiple other States. They all rejected it because it’s terribly confusing for a lot of us, right? Not maybe not me or you, but it will be for us. Soon we’re going to get sold. You know it happens, right, but it just I’m disappointed.
Rob Yundt: 37:45
You seen me run my race. Did you ever see me attack my opponent? Never once. Did you ever see me make up a lie? Never once Did you ever see me even mention their names? I had other opponents besides the incumbent. I would never do that. Right, I’m not. And just the amount of lies that came out, but these are out of state organizations. They and just the amount of lies that came out, but these are out-of-state organizations. They don’t care about making you. They don’t care about any person in the state. They’re looking at Alaska as a cheap date to experiment and tweak new systems, work out the bugs before they bring them back to their state. That’s all we are is a cheap date to the lower 48 radicals. We’re going to run another ballot initiative and I’m telling you we’re going to reverse it.
Niki Tshibaka: 38:27
We, we’re going to run another ballot initiative and I’m telling you we’re going to reverse it. We’re going to win next time. We got it because you know you said shame on the people doing this and also shame on the people here in Alaska who were being complicit with them. To pull the veil over people’s eyes with those kinds of lies, just just wrong. I mean, if you’re going to do it, make sure you’re doing it honestly.
Rob Yundt: 38:40
Yeah, the other thing I don’t like about the system is I don’t want to average people doing this. I don’t, and that’s what that’s what rank choice is really created to bring forward. Is the average of this and the average of that? No, I want the best of the best, right, like it. Uh, it’s just, it’s not a good system, you know. So I do hope it goes away. I’m in it. You know that. I’m sure there’ll be lawsuits and who knows the whole deal, right? I mean, there’s so few ballots separating that maybe some get thrown out, maybe the no wins bigger, maybe it loses smaller. Who knows? It’s so close. It’s 0.1%. Is the margin, right? The difference is two, but it’s 0.1 difference either way. And so, who knows? There’s going to be lawsuits and stuff. But I’m disappointed that they lied. Tell the truth. You like rank choice because it helps get the left in there. Just tell the truth. Don’t start making up lies about our veterans. Don’t start trying to deceive people. And that’s what they did. That’s what disappoints me.
Kelly Tshibaka: 39:38
Yeah, we appreciate that, rob. Thank you so much for being on our show when can people find out more about you as you?
Kelly Tshibaka: 39:49
move forward into the Senate. What’s your website? Robforalaskacom. No-transcript. Welcome back to Stand. You’re with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka.
Kelly Tshibaka: 40:18
Niki, I want, were so surprised and a bit discouraged about how the nation really expected a red wave and instead there was a red trickle. We had thought that between the Bidenflation and the horror at the border and we had gone from energy dominance to energy reliance on foreign adversaries, the war in Ukraine the people would go. We really want to see our defense not decimated but instead rebuilt. We want to see a stronger and secure border. We want to see jobs filled and returned. We want to see an end to the employment crisis across the country. We want to see a booming economy again instead of this radical inflation. We want to see families doing well. We want to see a stop to the progressive agenda madness. We want to see healthy foreign policy. We want to see things returned back to normal again. We want to see families cared for, etc.
Kelly Tshibaka: 41:35
And instead we eked out a razor thin majority in Congress of people who would advocate for those kind of policies. We saw the lowest voter turnout ever in the history of Alaska. We lost key seats across the country that we thought we would pick up in swing states and, of course, we saw what happened in the country playing out these last couple years as a result of the Senate having a majority in the Biden administration going virtually unchecked, and we thought, ok, what do we do, especially on the heels of our family, laying it all out on the line and losing just by about 19,000 votes that election when we had 19,000 super voter Republicans who didn’t vote in Alaska?
Niki Tshibaka: 42:23
I thought it was just 8,000 or 9,000.
Kelly Tshibaka: 42:25
When you do all the rank choice voting, if more people had shown up. Yeah, it was just a really surprising election turnout when we’d heard across the state that so many people wanted to see change, that they said it’s time for change and that their voices weren’t being heard. And then they just chose to opt out of their voices being heard, and so we said, well, what can we do? We really believe in not giving up. It’s one of our mottos as Tshibakas never quit. We also believe that Tshibakas never lose, because losing is a choice. You might not always win, but you can choose not to lose. And so we decided, well, what are we going to do? And part of what we wanted to do was really inspire people, not just in our state but across the country, that you can make a difference.
Kelly Tshibaka: 43:08
And I was really encouraged by what happened this election cycle. Not only that, trump won by, I think, flabbergasting margins. You know, the entire country was surprised, even CNN, when they flipped to that map in which counties did Kamala overperform and the whole map was blank and they lingered on it for like 30 seconds, being surprised that she didn’t perform over perform anywhere, that we were able to flip our our house seat by a huge percentage margin. Some of the seats that we were able to flip in Alaska were really encouraging, but I was encouraged by other seats that were flipped in even swing states across the country, like the Pennsylvania Senate seat, the Ohio Senate seat, for example toppling incumbents that were really powerful. These are all really encouraging signs.
Kelly Tshibaka: 43:58
But the thing that was really encouraging for me and I wanted to kick this over to you because I know that you have great thoughts on this is that it wasn’t just Republicans or people who would identify as Republicans or people who lean to the right who came together in this election, and I think that that’s really key, because we’ve brought on people who identify as Democrats or don’t identify as Republicans on this show, all saying the same thing, and those have been some of the interviews that you and I have enjoyed the most, some of the most thought-provoking interviews. It’s people from across political spectrum, or people who have different political ideologies, all coming to the same conclusion in this political cycle to say this is actually the best way forward for America. That created what we would call a red wave, but it’s not because they’re identifying with a political party. It’s because they’re identifying with what’s best for America, and I wanted you to talk about that because I thought that was what was really encouraging in this particular cycle. I think that’s what’s so important.
Niki Tshibaka: 44:59
Yeah, in fact, even the red wave imagery I think we’ve talked about this before. I saw it very much as a red, white and blue wave. It was, to your point, about the country coming together. We recognize as a country that we were losing what made us and makes us exceptional. Not exceptional in the sense that other people are inferior, other nations are inferior, but exceptional in the sense that we are unique. Unique in the principles that undergird and that are responsible for the flourishing that we’ve experienced as a country for almost 250 years now. Unique in the makeup of our population that’s so diverse and that we’re united around a common set or at least have been for 250 years, almost a common set of core values and principles that make you an American.
Niki Tshibaka: 45:52
You’re not an American because you’re of a certain color or ethnicity. You’re an American because you share a conviction and an allegiance to and a loyalty to a certain worldview about what it means to be human and what the nature of government is and should be and how it relates to us as human beings and what that interaction should be. So it was very gratifying and exciting and encouraging to see our nation realize, you know, what we don’t want to go down the road that Kamala and Biden have been leading us and the people on the far left end of the political spectrum, because that is not America. They actually want to destroy America as we know it and to see people across the political spectrum say no, I am an American and I want to see America great again.
Niki Tshibaka: 46:49
Us not poo-poo or denigrate our greatness but, embrace it as a good thing that we can do wonderful, wonderful things with going forward and into the future. So I was very encouraged by that. I was encouraged to see also the president-elect recognize that red, white and blue wave and start making cabinet picks and appointments that were consistent with that, you know, with. You know Tulsi Gabbard as the, you know DNI nominee and RFK and all of that.
Niki Tshibaka: 47:22
And at the local level here in Alaska. Unfortunately, as you were talking about with Rob, we didn’t see that, you know that trickle down in the same way, but we saw it at the federal level. You know people electing, you know the candidates at the federal level as well, across the political spectrum here at our state. So I’m really encouraged, I’m excited about what the future portends, because I think we have the potential to see the country move forward in a really good direction if we can stick together and not let the forces that are trying to divide us, you know, tear us asunder.
Kelly Tshibaka: 47:58
Yeah, I think that’s really good. I was just looking for a tweet that I saw Naomi Wolf had reposted from DC Drano and I thought that he summarized it really well. He said you know, in the last four years they unconstitutionally mandated that people take the COVID shot and, at the risk of at the threat of losing their jobs you had to. If you didn’t take the COVID shot, then you lose your jobs or you lose your medical practice. They, because you would lose your license they opened up the border and ushered in record levels of human trafficking and opioid trafficking.
Kelly Tshibaka: 48:33
People have lost their relatives and loved ones to opioid abuse and to murders and homicide. They’ve flipped our schools and flipped our hospitals and flipped our social services to give away free care to illegal immigrants at the expense of the taxpayers. And he just chronicled all of the abuses that have happened at the expense of you know they withheld FEMA care in emergency situations but sent all of our taxpayer dollars over to wars in foreign countries. They refused to help our allies in other countries when it would require peace for our allies. That, you know now is imminent threat and dangers for us as we let terrorists into the United States and what happened was so significant on Election Day because he said we have got to remember this because this is exactly what America is built on.