One Democrat, three Republicans, and two months to go

Alaska's left has consolidated behind one candidate for governor. The right has not.

Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins earned the most votes in the Aug. 18 primary with 22.5 percent and is now the only Democrat on the November ballot. He faces three Republicans: Bernadette Wilson, who took 10.1 percent, Dave Bronson at 8.1, and Candice English, who was on nobody's ballot as a Governor candidate two weeks ago.

Republican tickets took roughly half the primary vote across a dozen entries. Democratic tickets took about 43 percent across two. Those Republicans are now split three ways and the Democrats are not.

Primary numbers are a poor guide to November, though. The people who vote in August are not the people who vote in the fall, and primary turnout is lower, older and more partisan. Mary Peltola won an outright majority in the 2024 U.S. House primary, 50.9 percent to Nick Begich's 26.6, in a contest where 18 percent of registered voters turned out. She lost in November. She led this year's Senate primary too, 49.5 percent to Dan Sullivan's 41.4.

Tom Begich finished second with 20.8 percent, then withdrew and endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins.

Republicans were asked to do the same and declined. U.S. Rep. Nick Begich endorsed Wilson on Sunday as the top Republican finisher and called on the others to get out. Bronson had already said days earlier that he would not. "We are not backing down, we are not stepping aside, and we are not going anywhere," his campaign wrote.

Treg Taylor finished fifth and moved up when Begich withdrew, only to be disqualified Monday by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. "The integrity of Alaska's elections depends on candidates following the law," she said.

The dispute was over rental income. State law requires candidates to list every income source over $1,000, and Taylor's disclosure did not name the tenants of properties he owns. Jodi Taylor, his wife and co-owner of those properties, told the commission that naming tenants conflicts with Alaskans' constitutional right to privacy. The commission voted 4-1 against him, with the window to fix the filing having closed July 1.

Taylor's running mate, Candice English, took the top of the ticket and named Jodi Taylor as her lieutenant governor candidate in the last hours before the deadline. The Division of Elections has the ticket marked pending while it determines whether her disclosure satisfies the requirement she argued against.

While that sorts itself out, Kreiss-Tomkins has been collecting endorsements. IBEW Local 1547 backed him Wednesday, the eighth labor organization to do so. The Alaska AFL-CIO, endorsed him Aug. 27. Business manager Brannon Nichols said the electrical union wanted a partner on collective bargaining, infrastructure and organizing.

Through Aug. 8, ten days before the primary, his campaign reported raising about $2.17 million and spending about $1.86 million, leaving $309,935.85 on hand. The campaign has since authorized 21 more people to accept and spend money on its behalf, in Sitka, Juneau, Anchorage, Kenai, Eagle River and Douglas.

Under ranked choice, a voter can rank every candidate, and no vote is wasted on a second choice. But Alaskans do not always use it that way. Results over the past four years show a significant share of voters decline to rank beyond their first pick, and when those ballots run out of ranked candidates they simply stop counting. A field split three ways feels that more than a field of one.

None of this settles the race. It describes a structure, not an outcome.

Kreiss-Tomkins's fundraising took fire during the primary, mostly from Begich's campaign and surrogates. A substantial share of JKT's money had come from outside Alaska, including California donors employed by artificial intelligence companies. Republicans have glanced at it since, but their public argument has been with each other over whether any of them should leave the race. Every ticket's finance reports are filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

Alaska elections are decided in the middle, and the state has one of the largest blocs of undeclared and nonpartisan voters in the country, which is how Lisa Murkowski has kept a Senate seat through a write-in campaign and one ranked choice election. Those voters have not been asked their preference since the primary, and 166,992 of them turned out for that, the highest participation since 2022.