Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a former Democratic state representative, has won the Alaska governor’s race, according to the Associated Press, flipping the office from Republican control.
Kreiss-Tomkins, 37, will be the youngest governor in Alaska’s history. He defeated three Republicans, including President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate, Bernadette Wilson. Kreiss-Tomkins will be the state’s first Democratic governor since Tony Knowles, who served from 1994 to 2002, and will succeed Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R).
Kreiss-Tomkins was a major proponent of the bipartisan coalition that holds majorities in the state legislature. He campaigned on working with members of both parties, securing endorsements from Republicans and independents, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R).
“Alaskans voted for change and for a government that works across party lines to move Alaska forward,” Kreiss-Tomkins said Friday in a statement. “Thank you to every Alaskan who invited us into your home and to the 10,100 donors who gave to the campaign. This was a high-energy, people-powered campaign, and we’re grateful to everyone who was a part of it and believed this state can do better.”
The governor has considerable power in Alaska. They can veto specific lines in legislation, and the legislature must cobble a three-quarters vote to override vetoes on budgetary items. Dunleavy regularly clashed with the legislature on bills over state revenue and education funding. In his campaign for governor, Kreiss-Tomkins listed improving the state’s schools, lowering energy costs and protecting Medicaid as priorities.
Kreiss-Tomkins led by a wide margin after Election Day and crossed the 50 percent threshold late Thursday with 88 percent of the vote counted. Alaska’s election system hands the victory to the candidate who reaches at least that percentage of the vote once all ballots are counted. If no one has a clear majority, the bottom-ranked candidate drops out and their votes are redistributed to the other candidates based on a ranked-choice ballot.
Democrats were long favored to win the governor’s race, owing to Dunleavy’s low approval rating and a generally challenging political environment for Republicans. Alaska is uniquely sensitive to high prices because of the remoteness of many of its communities, requiring goods to be shipped over long distances and many homes to rely on diesel-based generators for electricity.
Kreiss-Tomkins and former state senator Tom Begich (D) advanced to the general election out of the nonpartisan primary in August, with both candidates securing more votes than any Republican. Begich, who came in second, secured more than twice as many votes as Wilson, who came in third.
Both Democratic candidates agreed to consolidate behind whichever candidate received the most votes in the primary. Shortly after the primary was called, Begich dropped out to ensure that only one Democrat would be on the ballot in November. Because four candidates run in the general election for governor, that move ensured that Republican support would be split among three candidates.
Trump attempted to rally Republicans behind Wilson, who also urged the other two Republicans to drop out. But both — former Anchorage mayor Dave Bronson and former attorney general Treg Taylor — refused. Together, they had secured more than 20 percent of the vote as of Friday.
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system and expansive electorate, spread across a colossal and sparsely populated state, contribute to a slow vote counting. The state’s highly competitive U.S. Senate race between incumbent Dan S. Sullivan (R) and former congresswoman Mary Peltola (D) had not been called as of Friday.
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