Photo: James Brooks, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Alaska voters have elected a Democrat as governor for the first time since 1998, with former state lawmaker Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins defeating three Republicans — including one endorsed by President Donald Trump — in a result that caps a sweeping midterm wave for Democrats in state governments across the country.
The Associated Press called the race for the 37-year-old former state representative from Sitka at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, and NBC News projected the same result minutes later. His victory gives Democrats control of the governor’s office in 30 states, after they flipped six Republican-held seats in the November 3 midterm elections: Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas. Republicans flipped none.
A comeback built on affordability
Kreiss-Tomkins, often referred to as JKT, completed a political comeback three years after leaving the Alaska House of Representatives. He travelled across the state building a coalition around affordability, advocating full funding for public schools, calling for all oil and gas producers to pay corporate income tax, and seeking a moratorium on new data centres until state lawmakers pass regulations for their development.
He said Alaska had become “broken” under eight years of outgoing Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy, who could not run again because of term limits, and needed a change. Among other issues, he pointed to a state ferry system he said had been left in shambles, with routes to many communities cut drastically — a lifeline for southeast Alaska communities not connected by roads.
He held 50.8% of first-choice votes counted as of Friday, according to the Anchorage Daily News, enough to win outright under Alaska’s ranked-choice system without a redistribution of votes. Several thousand ballots remained to be counted, so the final margin was not yet known.
Beating a Trump-backed field
Kreiss-Tomkins defeated Republicans Bernadette Wilson, Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor. Trump had endorsed Wilson, an Anchorage businesswoman, and criticised the other Republican candidates for staying in the race. Bronson is a former mayor of Anchorage, the state’s largest city, while Taylor was a state attorney general under Dunleavy. Bronson congratulated Kreiss-Tomkins on social media and wished him success.
His campaign drew support from unusual quarters. Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has at times been at odds with her party, endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins a week before the election, saying he “understands that governing requires listening to people with different perspectives and finding common ground to solve the problems all of us face.” Three former governors — Democrat Tony Knowles, independent Bill Walker and Republican Frank Murkowski — also endorsed him.
Kreiss-Tomkins finished first in August’s open primary, followed by a second Democrat, Tom Begich, who withdrew from the race so Democrats could unite behind one candidate. Wilson finished third in the primary.
Many Republicans had seen ranking as their party’s best chance of retaining the governor’s seat — a message that conflicted with Trump, who has repeatedly complained about Alaska’s unusual voting method, including during a rally in Alaska in October.
What happens next
In a statement declaring victory on Friday, Kreiss-Tomkins said voters wanted change and “a government that works across party lines to move Alaska forward. Our administration will not waste a single day getting to work to solve problems for Alaska.” He said his campaign had more than 10,000 donors.
He will be sworn in on December 7 as Alaska’s 13th governor. His lieutenant governor is Zac Johnson, an independent. The 37-year-old will become the youngest governor in Alaska’s history, and the state’s first Democratic governor since Tony Knowles left office in 2002 after serving back-to-back terms.
Kreiss-Tomkins, who emphasised a willingness to work across party lines and said he wanted a cabinet with Republicans, Democrats and independents, has said compromise “is a virtue, not a dirty word” — and that the mission of the new governor is to work with lawmakers to resolve longstanding problems in the state.
Sources: Associated Press; NBC News