Alaska too turns away from the Republicans: not even three of them could stop the Democrat

For the first time in twenty-eight years, Alaska has elected a Democratic politician as governor: the 37-year-old Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins defeated three Republican rivals, including one backed by Donald Trump. The youngest governor in the state's history campaigned on lowering the cost of living, fixing the funding of public schools, and a promise of cooperation across party lines, and won the support of Alaska's Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski.

Another Republican governorship has gone to the Democrats in the November 3 U.S. midterm elections: the Associated Press declared Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins the winner in Alaska, where counting continued for days after the vote due to the tallying of mail-in ballots and votes cast in remote communities. The politician, who hails from Sitka and previously worked in the state legislature, succeeds Republican Mike Dunleavy, who was barred from running again after two terms. The last time a Democratic candidate won a gubernatorial race here was in 1998, when Tony Knowles secured his second term and remained in office until 2002.

What's more, based on the results so far, Kreiss-Tomkins's victory does not appear to need the second chance offered by the electoral system. In Alaska, voters can rank the candidates, and if no one wins a majority of first-place votes, the weakest performer is eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to voters' further rankings. However, in the tally released on the evening of November 12, the Democratic candidate had already crossed the fifty percent threshold, meaning that if this proportion holds, deciding the gubernatorial race will not require taking further preferences into account.

His closest rival, Trump-backed businesswoman Bernadette Wilson, stood at 28.7 percent in the same tally, while Anchorage's former mayor, Dave Bronson, received 13.7 percent, and the state's former attorney general, Treg Taylor, got 7.3 percent. Trump's endorsement thus proved insufficient this time, and it did not help the Republicans that they surrounded the sole Democrat with three candidates: Kreiss-Tomkins secured a majority on his own from the first-preference votes counted so far. Wilson and Bronson both conceded defeat on November 13. Bronson congratulated the governor-elect, while Wilson said that although their visions for Alaska's future differ sharply, she is glad that a native of the state will lead it, and she does not doubt that Alaska's fate matters to Kreiss-Tomkins. Official certification of the result, however, is still pending; the election authority has set November 25 as the planned date for this.

The winner built his campaign around problems that hardly need much explaining to Alaskans. The already high costs of food, fuel and housing rose further, while the operation of schools was squeezed simultaneously by rising prices and insufficient state funding. Kreiss-Tomkins promised to ease the cost of living, to properly fund public schools, and to regulate the construction of data centers; regarding the latter, he called for suspending new investments until the legislature adopts comprehensive rules. He found supporters for this program beyond his own party as well. Besides Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, three former governors — one Democrat, one Republican and one independent — also backed him, and he in turn promised an administration made up of Democrats, Republicans and independents. Even after the election, he kept stressing that Alaskans want change and leadership that crosses party lines and focuses on solving problems.

With the Alaska result, the Democrats now hold the governorship in thirty states after the midterm elections, up from twenty-four previously. Kreiss-Tomkins takes office on December 7: Alaska will now see what becomes of the promise of cooperation made by a politician who has already won the trust of a majority of voters against a candidate backed by Trump.

Ugar