After the death of longtime Alaska Congressman Don Young, GOP politician Sarah Palin announced her candidacy in the 2022 special election for his congressional seat.
Palin, who served as the governor of Alaska, enjoys the support of former President Donald Trump and several other prominent conservative figures.
But 15 other candidates are running for the same seat -- and Santa Claus is one of them.
Based in the North Pole, a town of 2,000 in Alaska, Santa Claus looks just like the legendary character.
As reported by The Guardian, he won a city council seat in 2015 and has since been described as "a bastion of blue on a city council as red as Rudolph’s nose."
A supporter of independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Claus is a strong progressive who believes healthcare is a human right, and fights for racial justice, corporate accountability, and free elections.
And yes, Santa Claus is indeed his legal name.
Claus met Palin when she was governor, and they got along well.
"We met very briefly, but she had set up a meeting with six of her different department heads, which was quite unusual for a governor to do. So I was appreciative," he said, describing the Republican as "very nice, very helpful to me."
However, Claus noted that he and Palin are on the opposite ends of the political spectrum.
"Now that she’s been endorsed by Trump... let me put it this way: being a Bernie supporter, we have disparate views on a variety of subjects."
Claus changed his name from Tom O’Connor back in 2005.
As he pondered his life and prayed for guidance, somebody shouted, "Santa, I love you!" -- and he interpreted that as an answer to his prayers.
"That’s about as fast an answer to your prayer as I’d probably ever get. So next day, I called up the county clerk to change my name legally," Claus explained.
But that doesn't mean he greets and gifts children for Christmas. "I tend to interact more with adults with respect to legislation," he told The Guardian.
Polls suggest that Palin has a good chance of winning Alaska's special election.
As reported by Forbes, a recent survey found that 31 percent of Alaskans would vote for Palin, which put her above any other candidate.
Independent candidate Al Gross, who is backed by Democrats, came in second in the same survey, while Republican Nick Begich came in third with 21 percent of the vote.
