Registered to vote in April, independent candidate seeks fourth spot in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race

Shoshana Gungurstein moved to Juneau during the COVID-19 pandemic. She registered to vote in Alaska in April. Now, she’s running for U.S. Senate and has an outside chance to finish fourth in Tuesday’s primary election, high enough to advance to the November general election in a scramble among 16 competitors.

“I want to represent the state,” she said during a campaign trip to Fairbanks on Wednesday.

The 38-year-old Gungurstein is running as an independent and said she believes it’s time for a younger generation to assume office.

“I truly want to give my generation here in Alaska a voice and advocate for the ones still to come,” she said.

Gungurstein, said she visited Alaska frequently with her family before moving here permanently “two and a half or three years” ago. 

“I’ve been coming to Kenai in the summers, fishing with family, and I’ve spent time in Southeast before I moved permanently in Juneau,” she said.

Gungurstein registered to vote so recently that she wouldn’t be eligible for state office under state law and the state constitution. The U.S. Constitution has looser rules for federal office and says only that a senator must be at least 30 years old, a citizen for nine years, and living in the state if elected.

To date, Gungurstein has had an eclectic career, including time as an actress under the name Shoshana Chagall. Her acting career was first reported by the website the Alaska Landmine, and she confirmed the site’s reporting by phone.

“I’m very multifaceted, and I can do multiple things at the same time,” she said. “I really think that this is what we need in leadership in Alaska instead of the same old D.C. insiders.”

In a written statement released on the same day as her phone interview with the Beacon, she said she is currently producing a film called “Demon Hunter.”

Little information is available about Gungurstein online, and the conservative Alaska political website Must Read Alaska questioned whether Gungurstein is a fake candidate. In 2020, a sham candidate helped swing a Florida state Senate race in favor of a Republican by splitting Democratic votes.

Alaska’s new ranked-choice election system is resistant to that technique, because lower-ranked candidates will be eliminated if no one wins a majority. AndGungurstein said she is not being paid to run for office.

“Definitely, absolutely not the case with me,” she said.

Gungurstein said she graduated from the University of Utah in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, received a Master of Business Administration degree from Loma Linda University the following year and a legal degree from Whittier Law School in 2009. (The law school has since closed.)

Gungurstein said her maiden name is Shoshanna Chagall Gungur, and that she changed her last name after marrying Adam Stein. Her first name changed for phonetic reasons, she said.

Her political positions are a mixture of libertarian, conservative and progressive. 

At a Juneau abortion-rights rally, she spoke about the need to protect the right to abortion. In an official statement to the Alaska Division of Elections, she advocated greater federal funding to address “mental health despair” and to “reduce our numbers of unhoused.”

She also used some language from former President Donald Trump, repeating the phrase “stop the steal,” a reference to Trump-supported conspiracy theories that he, not President Joe Biden, won the 2020 presidential election.

“I am a thoroughly independent, nonpartisan person,” she said when asked about the mixture of ideas. “That’s how I see myself, I’ve always seen myself, and I continue to be this person.”

Gungurstein has not filed a personal financial disclosure, something required by federal law for candidates who raise or spend more than $5,000.

Her campaign-related financial disclosures and her investment history indicate some degree of personal wealth.

Gungurstein’s campaign has been mostly self-funded, according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission, but she has the fourth-highest fundraising total of candidates in the race, behind Republican incumbent Lisa Murkoski, Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka and Democratic challenger Pat Chesbro. (Huhnkie Lee, another candidate, has more money if his associated presidential campaign is included.)

That’s notable because Alaska’s new election system, installed by a 2020 ballot measure, allows the top four vote-getters in the primary to advance to the November general election.

With money available for ads and signs, plus many competitors to split the vote, Gungurstein is one of the candidates who could advance to the general election alongside the perceived frontrunners.

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