Democrat Kreiss-Tomkins wins Alaska governor’s race, set to be state’s youngest governor

Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has won the race for governor of Alaska in the United States. According to a race call by the Associated Press, he won and will replace the outgoing Republican governor.

At 37, Kreiss-Tomkins will be the youngest governor in Alaska’s history. He is a former state representative from the small island community of Sitka.

He will replace outgoing Governor Mike Dunleavy, a term-limited Republican who has been governor since 2018. The state’s last Democratic governor was Tony Knowles, who left office in 2002.

Kreiss-Tomkins, known by his initials JKT, made his “high-energy, bipartisan, problem-solving approach” a centrepiece of his campaign. He has said he plans to build an administration of Democrats, Republicans and independents, and described himself at a debate as a “man of the middle.”

He was endorsed by three former governors—a Democrat, a Republican and an independent—along with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.

In an interview just before voting at a precinct in Anchorage on Election Day, Kreiss-Tomkins said Alaskans have had enough of zero-sum partisan politics. “I strongly believe people just want things to work, and want people to work together,” he said.

The AP race call came after more than a week of counting votes, including those arriving by mail and from remote parts of the state. Under the state’s ranked-choice system he faced three Republican candidates, including one backed by President Trump. Winning requires a majority of the votes.

Voters also faced a ballot question on whether to scrap that unique ranked-choice system. According to another AP race call, that proposal failed, keeping the system in place.

The Republicans in the race were Trump-backed business owner Bernadette Wilson, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor. Kreiss-Tomkins is set to take office at noon on 7 December.

With Kreiss-Tomkins’ win and others in the midterms, Democrats will hold 30 governors’ offices across the country, up from 24 now.

He will take office in a state where voters have loudly complained that things are not working as they should. Rising costs and relatively flat state funding have forced schools to close and class sizes to rise. Already-high costs for food, fuel and housing have risen sharply, and a looming shortage of easily accessible natural gas near the state’s population centres threatens to push prices higher. Alaskans have been migrating out of the state for more than a decade.