Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins was elected the 13th governor of Alaska.
Kreiss-Tomkins, a 37-year-old former member of the House of Representatives from Sitka, emerged victorious with a majority of the vote after presenting himself as a moderate leader who would seek compromise to resolve the challenges facing the state.
When he is sworn in on Dec. 7, he will become the first Democrat to lead Alaska since former Gov. Tony Knowles completed his eight-year term in 2002.
With 50.8% of first-choice votes counted Friday, Kreiss-Tomkins beat three Republicans in the general election. The Republican Party’s top vote-getter was Bernadette Wilson, an Anchorage business owner who received support from President Donald Trump after promising a combative, partisan approach to government. Wilson received 28.1% of first-choice votes. Also on the ballot was former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, who received 13.6 percent of the first-choice votes. Former Attorney General Treg Taylor owned 7.2%.
Although several thousand votes remain to be counted in the coming days, Kreiss-Tomkins declared victory Friday. Most of the remaining mail-in votes will continue to go in his favor, according to preliminary data.
“Alaskans voted for change and for a government that works across partisan lines to move Alaska forward,” Kreiss-Tomkins said in a statement Friday morning. “Our administration will not waste a single day getting to work solving Alaska’s problems.”
Kreiss-Tomkins will succeed Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a conservative Republican who was dropped from running for re-election.
Zac Johnson, an independent who currently serves in the Anchorage Assembly, will serve as lieutenant governor, succeeding current Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who has served in Dunleavy’s administration since her 2022 re-election.
Dunleavy’s departure from office precipitated a close race to fill the seat. The August primary had 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, two Democrats and three independents.
Kreiss-Tomkins entered the race late, announcing her run in February. He became the first candidate to win primary votes in August, after raising more money than any other candidate for his campaign.
Ultimately, Kreiss-Tomkins raised more than $5 million, more than all of her opponents combined. He also received millions of dollars from the Democratic Governors Association, which outspent the Alaska Republican Governors Association by far.
(Previous coverage: Kreiss-Tomkins outlines policy priorities as governor)
To win, the former South East MP overcame limited awareness outside his home region and had to persuade a broad coalition of voters to support him.
“I always felt like there was a majority of common-sense Alaskans who wanted change and who were discouraged by the last eight years. I felt like if our campaign could unite Alaskans from the center right to the left and all points in between, this coalition could achieve a victory,” Kreiss-Tomkins said in an interview Friday. He also said the statewide campaign appealed to his “creative impulses.”
“Using the campaign to try to imagine what a statewide campaign might look like was something I had a lot of pent-up curiosity about,” he said. That meant creative ideas like hosting a 5K run in Anchorage’s Kincaid Park as a campaign event and traveling to rural areas of the state that rarely see statewide candidates.
Her campaign said Kreiss-Tomkins visited 62 communities and traveled 40,000 miles. He embarked on a 350-mile snowmobile journey through the villages of the northwest Arctic; took a 450-mile boat trip on the Yukon River and a 100-mile boat trip on the Kuskokwim River; drove the Haul Road to Prudhoe Bay; flew to Utqiagvik to observe a whale hunt; and took the Tustumena ferry to communities along the Aleutian chain, while maintaining a base in Anchorage.
Meanwhile, running Republicans — including the three who ultimately advanced to the general election after the primaries — focused on GOP strongholds along the Railbelt as they struggled to raise money and solidify support given the crowded field.
Trump’s support for Wilson in October did little to shake things up among Republican-leaning voters. Bronson’s last-minute efforts to distance himself from the president, whom he had previously praised, also didn’t help much. The Alaska GOP, in an unusual move, refused to endorse or spend money on any of the Republicans in the field.
Republican candidates who advanced to the general election were also hamstrung by the controversy. Wilson did little to explain his history of unpaid business and personal debts; Bronson struggled to overcome a negative reputation cemented during his acrimonious tenure as mayor of Anchorage; and Taylor, who until recently was the state’s top prosecutor, was briefly barred from the ballot for failing to disclose his financial interests as required by law.
Democrats and independents, meanwhile, united behind Kreiss-Tomkins after the primary, notably with the departure of Democrat Tom Begich, who came in just behind Kreiss-Tomkins in the primary, then dropped out and supported Kreiss-Tomkins.
In the final days of the campaign, Kreiss-Tomkins was also endorsed by a handful of Republican leaders, including U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who said he “understands that governing requires listening to people with different perspectives and finding common ground.”
(“A broad and growing mandate”: Alaskans vote to keep ranked-choice voting and open primaries)
Since the election, Kreiss-Tomkins has already quietly set to work on the transition, with just over three weeks until he is sworn in. He said three transition co-chairs — one Democrat, one Republican and one independent — would help guide his decisions as he prepares to take office. His first test will come just a week into his term, when he is expected to present his proposed state budget.
“It’s like we have to eat a whole elephant,” Kreiss-Tomkins said Friday. “So we’re heads down and approaching this with as much thought and care as possible.”
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