Twenty-two-vote House race becomes open-seat fight in North Anchorage

House District 18 may be the easiest legislative race in Alaska to explain in one number.

Twenty-two votes.

That was the gap in 2024, when Republican David Nelson beat Democrat Cliff Groh in the North Anchorage and JBER district, according to official election results. Nelson received 1,878 votes. Groh received 1,856.

Now Nelson is not on the Division of Elections candidate list for the 2026 race.

The Alaska Division of Elections lists Groh, a Democrat, as certified. It lists Dan Sager, a Republican, as certified. That turns one of the closest House race of 2024 into an open-seat fight for 2026.

District 18 is not a tidy campaign abstraction. Groh's campaign site describes it as Government Hill, North Muldoon, JBER, Downtown and Fairview. It is the kind of Anchorage district where military families, renters, downtown workers, old neighborhoods and people living close to the edge of state services all share one House seat.

Groh is a lifelong Alaskan who calls himself a co-creator of the dividend and frames his campaign around the Permanent Fund and state fiscal plan. His official campaign site says Alaska needs a comprehensive fiscal plan, a sustainable and rising dividend, investment in education, health care and roads, and new revenue to replace lost oil production.

That is not a new theme for Groh. The fiscal plan has long been his lane. In a district decided by 22 votes, he now gets to make that case without facing the incumbent who beat him.

Sager is a registered Republican with an Anchorage address and campaign email listed by the Division of Elections. His campaign website returned as private when checked, so the state candidate list is the usable public record for now.

That imbalance matters for how the race should be covered. Groh has a visible policy pitch. Sager has a certified ballot position and the Republican line in a district Republicans won last time by almost nothing.

The 2024 result is the real context.

A race decided by 22 votes is not a mandate. It is a warning label. It means a few apartments, a few military households, a few voters in Government Hill or Muldoon, a few people who skipped the race or wrote in a name could have changed the winner.

Now the incumbent is gone, the Democrat who nearly won is back, and Republicans have a new certified candidate trying to hold the seat when Midterms typically have shifted the district toward the left, and then back to Republican control during Presidential Elections.

That is enough to make HD18 one of the first House races to watch.