Kreiss-Tomkins picks Anchorage Assembly member Zac Johnson as running mate

Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins selected Anchorage Assembly member Zac Johnson as his running mate Monday, the final day for Alaska governor candidates to file for office.

Johnson represents South Anchorage and Girdwood on the Anchorage Assembly. He was elected to the seat in 2023 and re-elected in 2026 in a right-leaning district.

Before entering local politics, Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after September 11, 2001, serving as an infantryman with the First Marine Division during the early phase of the Iraq War. He later attended the University of Alaska Anchorage, volunteered as a firefighter EMT with the Girdwood Fire Department, and joined the Alaska State Troopers, where he flew as a pilot and served on the Special Emergency Response Team.

The choice comes as Alaska's crowded open governor race moves from speculation into fixed tickets. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor file jointly. The state filing deadline is Monday, June 1. The primary is Aug. 18, with the top four candidates advancing to the ranked-choice general election in November.

The selection caps a week of campaign-momentum announcements that included endorsements from former Gov. Tony Knowles and the SEIU service-workers union. The campaign told supporters in a Sunday-night message that it timed the running mate announcement to "match that energy."

Kreiss-Tomkins, a former state representative from Sitka, has been running as one of the better-known Democratic-aligned candidates in a field led in early polling by former state Sen. Tom Begich, a Democrat from Anchorage. Recent surveys have not shown Begich with a majority, but they have consistently placed him at the front of the field.

A Dittman Research poll conducted April 27-30 among 451 likely voters showed Begich at 21 percent. It placed Kreiss-Tomkins at 5 percent, tied with Matt Claman and Treg Taylor and behind Dave Bronson, Bernadette Wilson and Click Bishop.

An Alaska Survey Research poll conducted May 14-17 among 1,401 likely voters showed Begich at 20.8 percent, Wilson at 15.8 percent, Bronson at 10.6 percent, Bishop at 9.8 percent, Kreiss-Tomkins at 7.6 percent, Claman at 7.3 percent and Nancy Dahlstrom at 6.4 percent. Those polls were taken before former Gov. Bill Walker entered the race late last week.

The Johnson pick gives Kreiss-Tomkins a running mate with Assembly experience in Anchorage and a public-safety profile, as the campaign tries to hold a lane among Democratic and independent voters while the broader field includes Begich, Walker, Lesil McGuire and several Republican candidates. The campaign has named school closures, outmigration and Alaska's fisheries among its core issues.