Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is projected to win Alaska’s gubernatorial election, bringing the party back to an office it last won in 1998. Decision Desk HQ called the race for the former state lawmaker following a four-candidate general election conducted under the state’s ranked-choice voting system.
Kreiss-Tomkins had 50.8 percent of the vote, compared with 28.1 percent for Republican Bernadette Wilson, with 90 percent of ballots counted as of 11:57 p.m. EST on Friday, November 13. The projection puts him ahead of Wilson and the two other Republicans who competed for the governorship.
At 37, Kreiss-Tomkins is set to take office as the youngest governor in Alaska’s history. He will succeed Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, whose term limit prevented another run. Dunleavy won his 2022 reelection campaign by a margin exceeding 25 percentage points, making the projected change in party control a reversal from that result.
The Democratic field narrowed after Tom Begich withdrew from the contest. Begich, a member of Alaska’s prominent Begich family, had qualified for the general election through the summer primary. He subsequently endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins, a move intended to improve the party’s chances of winning by clearing the way for his fellow Democrat.
Republicans had three candidates in the general election: Wilson, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former state Attorney General Treg Taylor. Their presence raised concerns that Republican votes would be divided among them. Those concerns came alongside voter skepticism about the ranked-choice system used to decide the four-way contest.
Kreiss-Tomkins also received support from Alaska’s Republican U.S. senator, Lisa Murkowski. As the campaign approached its final stretch, he held the lead in both fundraising and polling. Assessments of the race shifted in his party’s direction during the fall, with Cook Political Report moving the contest into its toss-up category in September before rating it lean Democrat in October.
The projected victory ends a Republican pattern of winning the governorship that had been interrupted by independent Bill Walker. Walker won a single term in 2014. Kreiss-Tomkins would be the first Democrat elected to the position in more than two decades.
Alaska was among five governorships that Democrats potentially could flip, according to Decision Desk HQ forecasts issued a week before the election. Three dozen gubernatorial contests appeared on Tuesday’s ballot, placing the Alaska result within a broader set of races for control of state executive offices.
