Look around Juneau and the signs of the times are easy to see: They say “Trump.”
Whether decorated or defaced, these signs and the people behind them tell the story of the 2016 presidential election, which in its final days has focused on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Mike Holloway is the owner of Mike’s Airport Express and is the person behind the Trump sign at the Douglas Island roundabout.
“I like everything about him,” Holloway said of the Republican candidate.
Holloway said he isn’t a Republican or a Democrat, but an independent conservative. Most of the men in his shop — which services vehicles and provides fuel on Old Glacier Highway — feel the same way.
Behind the cash register was Robert Hall.
“The bottom line is the economy and keeping our borders safe,” Hall said.
He praised Trump’s promises to lower taxes and reduce government regulations, moves both he and Holloway said they support. They said Clinton supports the opposite — higher taxes and more regulations.
Holloway said the Trump-Clinton choice is one between anti-abortion and abortion rights, between Second Amendment rights and Second Amendment restrictions.
“It’s not just him being elected,” he added. “It’s the Supreme Court judges — this election is going to affect the next 20-30 years.”
Perhaps for all of those reasons, Holloway said “this election just seems so bitter.”
Recently, the large sign he posted was defaced with a female symbol and a heart, apparently an allusion to Trump’s alleged abuses against women.
“It seems a shame,” Holloway said. “You can’t have a sign up in your yard without someone vandalizing it.”
“When was the last time you saw a Hillary sign vandalized?” added Hall.
Juneau isn’t the friendliest territory for Trump, even if the rest of Alaska appears inclined in his favor. Four years ago, Alaska went 54.8 percent to Republican Mitt Romney and 40.8 percent to incumbent Democrat Barack Obama. In the City and Borough of Juneau, that percentage was more than reversed. Of the 17,008 people who cast presidential ballots in CBJ precincts, 57.2 percent went for Obama.
This year, there are 5,422 registered Democrats in the CBJ and just 4,578 Republicans. (Most CBJ residents — 14,492 — are undeclared or nonpartisan, but based on voting patterns tend to favor Democrats.)
On Facebook, Trump supporter Norman Haskell said “We need someone in Washington who is not in debt to the system. Trump is not a politician and that is a good thing for the USA.”
Reached by phone, Haskell said he supports Trump but doesn’t show it by displaying a sign.
“There’s people stealing them, people destroying them. I don’t want damage to my property,” he said.
Haskell recently noticed a Trump sign at the intersection of Atlin Drive and Mendenhall Loop Road that was vandalized by someone using black paint to write “big man, pig man” over it.
“I was like, I really don’t want that or need that in my front yard,” he said.
That sign is on land owned by Rainforest Properties LLC, which is controlled by Richard Harris. Traveling on Thursday, Harris did not return a call for comment. Neither did Spike Bicknell, who owns the land that hosts another large Trump sign in wetlands along Egan Drive.
A large homemade Trump sign hangs from a child’s playhouse along Stephen Richards Memorial Drive. That sign has been placed, torn down and rebuilt since Trump ran in the presidential primary, but the woman who answered the door of the nearby home — its entry was covered in written messages proclaiming “Gay not OK” — said the builder of the sign wasn’t available to talk.
A Trump sign also hangs from a disused boat lift along Egan Drive. Doug Trucano owns that land, and by phone, he said simply that “I don’t think that he’s the best candidate, but he’s better than the other ones.”
Jody Vick is the man behind many of Juneau’s Trump signs. Together with Ron Flint of Nugget Alaskan Outfitters and a third man, Vick said he’s waded wetlands to upright overturned Trump signs and replaced damaged ones.
“I’m a little bit excited,” Vick said of Trump’s candidacy. “Business as normal has to be changed, and this is a possibility of electing a businessman.”
Vick might be excited, but not everyone else is.
One homemade sign on North Douglas Highway features the silhouette of a man dangling over a toilet upside-down and asks drivers to “Dump Trump.”
“There’s a lot of people who disagree with me,” Holloway said, “but whenever that happens, I just tell them that’s why we have two candidates.”
Among the people who disagrees with him is his mother, who owns the house that faces the Douglas roundabout.
“My mom, she can’t stand Trump,” he said, but when he asked to put up the sign on her fence, she agreed.
Vick, who’s been busy planting signs, said he believes Trump has a chance to win the election, but “if it doesn’t work out, then in another four years, just like anyone else, we’ll see who’s on the list.”
• Contact Empire reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or 523-2258.
A pro-Trump sign at the Glacier View Trailer Park on Stephen Richards Memorial Drive.
A anti-Trump sign on North Douglas Highway.
