Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, waves signs alongside supporters on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Juneau. Kiehl won reelection unopposed. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Two Republican members of the Alaska Senate’s bipartisan supermajority are on course to be replaced by more conservative Republicans, according to preliminary election results published through 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night.
With 11 of 12 precincts reporting in Senate District N, former Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assemblyman Robert Yundt had 53.4% of the vote against incumbent Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, and fellow Republican candidate Stephen Wright.
In Interior Alaska, Tok Republican Rep. Mike Cronk is on pace to replace Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks. Bishop declined to run for re-election, and with 41 of 48 precincts reporting in Senate District R, Cronk had 52% of the vote. His leading challenger, undeclared candidate Savannah Fletcher, had 41.5%. Alaskan Independence Party candidate Robert “Bert” Williams had 6.3%.
If both Cronk and Yundt choose to join the three-person Senate Republican minority, it would give the minority five members, the minimum needed to hold seats on Senate committees.
Thousands of absentee and early votes remain to be counted in races across the state, and the numbers will change as more ballots are counted.
Additionally, if there are three or more candidates in a race and no one has more than 50% of the vote, ranked choice voting will be used on Nov. 20 before a final winner is declared.
Anyone who voted for the last-place finisher in the race will have their votes redistributed to their second choice. If there are four candidates, the third-place finisher will be eliminated, and their votes will be redistributed.
By phone late Tuesday, Wilson said that while it’s theoretically possible that late-counted ballots could change the result in his race, he doesn’t see it as likely.
“It is what it is,” he said. “It’s not my choice; it’s the voters’ choice.”
Wilson was the only member of the Senate coalition from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and said that if Yundt holds to campaign-trail promises and refuses to work with Democrats, “it means the Valley is going to be in a world of hurt.”
“I see a coalition in the House. I see a coalition in the Senate,” he said. “I don’t see the Valley at the table in any form.
In a few Senate races, late-counted ballots and ranked choice tabulation could allow candidates who trail on Election Day to win the election.
In Fairbanks, Democratic Sen. Scott Kawasaki led Republican challenger Leslie Hajdukovich by only 74 votes out of 9,411 counted through Election Day. According to a summary of absentee ballots published Nov. 1 by the Alaska Division of Elections, several hundred votes remain to be counted in that race.
Elsewhere in the state, three Senate incumbents held significant leads but were slightly below the 50% threshold.
In Eagle River’s Senate district, Republican Sen. Kelly Merrick had 46.6% of the vote against Republican challenger Jared Goecker, who had 40.3% with 12 of 13 precincts reporting results. Democratic candidate Lee Hammermeister had 12.8%. If ranked choice tabulation is needed in that race, Hammermeister’s voters are expected to favor Merrick.
In South Anchorage, Republican Sen. James Kaufman had 49.2% of the vote against Democratic candidate Janice Park, who had 43.2%. Third-place Republican candidate Harold Borbridge had 7.4%, and if ranked choice tabulation is needed, Borbridge’s voters are expected to prefer Kaufman.
On the Kenai Peninsula, Republican Sen. Jesse Bjorkman had 47.8% of the vote against more conservative Republican Rep. Ben Carpenter, who sought to switch to the Senate but had only 41.1% of the vote at the end of Election Day.
Democratic candidate Tina Wegener had 10.8%, and her voters are expected to prefer Bjorkman in ranked choice tabulation.
Of the Senate’s 20 members, 10 were up for election this year. Six Republicans — including all three members of the Senate’s minority caucus — and four Democrats were not on the ballot.
Among the remaining 10, two Democrats — Jesse Kiehl of Juneau and Donny Olson of Golovin — ran for reelection uncontested. Preliminary results Tuesday showed them well on the way to another four-year term, with few write-in votes against them.
Two other races were well on the way to being decided.
In Anchorage, Democratic Sens. Matt Claman and Forrest Dunbar held large leads Tuesday night. Dunbar led undeclared candidate Cheronda Smith by almost 39 percentage points with all precincts reporting results. Claman led Republican Liz Vazquez by 8.6 percentage points with all precincts reporting.
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