After Alaska’s primary election, here’s how the state’s legislative races are shaping up

Workers at the Alaska Division of Elections’ State Review Board consider ballots on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, at the division’s headquarters in Juneau. At background is the Alaska State Capitol. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

With 60 days to go before Election Day, the results of the state’s primary election have given Alaskans an early look at who could control the state House and Senate in January.

Control of the House and Senate means control of the legislative agenda. If Republicans control both the House and Senate, they would likely support Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s policies, and conservative priorities would advance.

If a bipartisan or multipartisan majority controls either the House or Senate, the Legislature would likely function as it has for the past few years. Lawmakers would likely fail to pass bills touching on controversial social issues and instead focus on the state budget. 

Primary results aren’t everything. Low turnout and an unexpectedly Democratic lean to the results means that November could look very different from August.

Alaska Senate’s coalition likely to continue

The 20-person state Senate is controlled by a 17-member bipartisan supermajority that includes nine Democrats and eight Republicans.

Three hardline conservative Republicans make up an unofficial Senate minority.

Seven members of the supermajority aren’t up for election this year. Another two are running unopposed. Two more — Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, and Matt Claman, D-Anchorage — ran well ahead of their challengers in the primary election. 

In a third race, Democratic challenger Janice Park beat Republican incumbent James Kaufman in a South Anchorage primary. Kaufman is a member of the current bipartisan majority, and Park has said she would join one. 

Those 12 seats mean a Senate bipartisan majority is expected to continue past this election.

But Republicans could still cut the supermajority’s size, which would hobble it on hotly contested issues like the size of the Permanent Fund dividend.

In the Kenai Peninsula, coalition Republican Jesse Bjorkman is facing Ben Carpenter, a strict conservative Republican who has served in the state House for several years. 

In the primary, Bjorkman received 44.3% of the vote and Carpenter received 40.3%. 

Alaskan Independence Party candidate Andy Cizek, who earned 2.6%, withdrew from the race after the primary.

Tina Wegener, registered as a Democratic candidate, received 12.8% of the vote. Bjorkman and local Democrats say Wegener, who has a history of supporting Republican candidates, is a false-flag Democrat intended to divert support from Bjorkman. The Alaska Democratic Party is not supporting Wegener’s campaign.

In the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, David Wilson is one of the more conservative Republicans to serve in the Senate coalition. He received 41.4% of the vote in the primary. 

Wilson faces two Republican challengers in November. Robert Yundt received 32.7% of the primary vote, while Stephen Wright earned 26%. If either of the two challengers wins, it would replace a coalition-minded Republican with a hardline Republican. 

The same could occur in Eagle River, where Republican Sen. Kelly Merrick is facing a challenge from Republican Jared Goecker. 

Goecker received 32.7% of the primary vote against Merrick’s 34%, but two other Republicans in the race — former state Reps. Ken McCarty and Sharon Jackson — were also in the primary and have since withdrawn, endorsing Goecker.

Democratic candidate Lee Hammermeister received 14.6% of the primary vote and is staying in the race, which could split support from Merrick, as in the Kenai Peninsula race. 

Fairbanks and Interior Alaska have two tossup races. Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, is being challenged by Republican Leslie Hajdukovich, who finished ahead of Kawasaki in the primary. Hajdukovich received 51.35% of the vote, while Kawasaki earned 48.65%.

Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks and a member of the coalition, is not running for reelection. Rep. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, received 43.8% of the vote in the primary, followed by undeclared independent Savannah Fletcher with 42.3%. 

Republican James Squyers had 7.6% of the vote in the primary but withdrew afterward. Robert “Bert” Williams of the Alaskan Independence Party had 6.4% of the vote and has stayed in the race.

Alaska House control is in question

Control of the 40-person state House requires 21 votes. Many Republicans have said they’d prefer to operate with a solely Republican majority, but right now, that’s not possible. 

There are 21 Republicans in the House, but that includes moderate Republican Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, and extremely conservative Republican David Eastman, R-Wasilla.

Eastman has been rejected by mainstream Republicans in the House and operates as a caucus of one. Stutes — a prior speaker of the House — has been a member of mostly Democratic coalitions for eight years. 

In the primary, both Eastman and Stutes finished well ahead of their challengers and appear on course for reelection.

Among the 19 other Republicans in the House, five are running unopposed and three finished ahead of their primary challengers by at least 8 percentage points. Another pair of races include Republican-on-Republican contests in which all of the candidates have said they prefer to join a predominantly Republican majority.

In Wasilla, Rep. Jesse Sumner declined to run for reelection after the primary, leaving three Republicans to face off in the general election. On the Kenai Peninsula, Bill Elam and John Hillyer are competing to replace Carpenter, who is running for Senate.

In Ketchikan, Republicans are favored to gain a seat in the House after the retirement of Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan. In a district that voted for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in both 2020 and 2016, Republican Jeremy Bynum won 49% of the primary vote, just below the threshold needed to win the election without the use of ranked choice voting. He’s opposed by nonpartisan candidates Grant EchoHawk and Agnes Moran.

That expected Republican victory could be offset by an expected defeat on the opposite end of the state, where Rep. Thomas Baker trailed two different Democratic candidates in the primary. 

Saima Chase and Robyn Burke each finished ahead of Baker, who was appointed to the Legislature by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in November 2023, after Josiah Patkotak resigned to become the North Slope Borough mayor. At the time, Baker was a registered Republican; he’s now running as an undeclared candidate.

The district leans Democratic, but it has become more Republican in each presidential election since 2000.

In South Anchorage, Republican former Rep. Chuck Kopp finished ahead of incumbent Republican Rep. Craig Johnson by more than 20 percentage points in the primary. Kopp’s policy positions are more in line with the House’s current minority bloc, which includes 12 Democrats, four independents and Stutes. 

Among the 16 members of the House minority, four are running unopposed and a fifth is effectively unopposed.

Democratic candidate Carolyn Hall is running to replace Rep. Jennie Armstrong, D-Anchorage, who is not seeking reelection. Progressive independent Nick Moe challenged Hall in the primary and intended to withdraw afterward, but a paperwork error meant that he remained on the general election ballot. Moe has suspended his campaign and endorsed Hall. 

In addition to Stutes, eight other members of the minority defeated their primary opponent or opponents by at least 10 percentage points.

That leaves a handful of tossup seats along the Railbelt.

In the district covering Homer, Rep. Sarah Vance defeated three opponents in the primary election, earning just over 43% of the vote. One of those opponents — nonpartisan candidate Alanna Greer — has since dropped out, leaving nonpartisan candidate Brent Johnson and Republican Dawson Slaughter in the race as well.

Having two Republicans could result in a split vote, particularly since Republicans in 2022 were more likely to skip ranking multiple candidates. If that pattern repeats this year, it could help Johnson in November.

Similarly, in the district covering Delta Junction and much of the eastern Interior, Democratic candidate Brandon “Putuuqti” Kowalski finished first in the primary with almost 34% of the vote, but in November, ranked choice voting could see the combined votes of his three challengers — two Republicans and a Libertarian — top him in the final tabulation. It isn’t yet clear whether Republicans Rebecca Schwanke and Pamela Goode, or Libertarian James Fields, would have the advantage in the ranked choice result.

In South Anchorage, post-primary withdrawals saw a four-way race condense to a head-to-head matchup between nonpartisan candidate Ky Holland and Republican Lucy Bauer for a seat covering the Anchorage Hillside and Girdwood.

Holland received an endorsement from one of the withdrawn candidates, Republican Lee Ellis, while Bauer was endorsed by the other, Republican Brandy Pennington.

Ellis and Holland had a combined primary vote total of about 60%, but it isn’t clear whether Republican voters who backed Ellis will switch to a nonpartisan candidate in November.

Elsewhere in Anchorage, Republican Rep. Julie Coulombe received about 52% of the primary vote against Democratic challenger Walter Featherly in a rematch of a 2022 legislative contest.

Also in Anchorage, incumbent Republican Rep. Stanley Wright lost the primary vote to Democratic challenger Ted Eischeid by just 35 votes out of 1,215 cast, the closest margin in the state. Both will be rematched in November, as will Coulombe and Featherly.

In Anchorage’s Sand Lake neighborhood, Republican Mia Costello, received just over 50% of the vote in a race against Democratic candidate Denny Wells. Costello served in the state Senate until she was defeated in the 2022 election and is seeking a return to the Legislature in a seat currently held by Republican Rep. Tom McKay, who is not running for reelection.

Perennial political candidate Dustin Darden is running as a Democrat this year and could be a decisive presence if he splits the Democratic vote in what otherwise is a closely divided district.

In Fairbanks, Democratic Rep. Maxine Dibert and Republican challenger Bart LeBon are reprising their 2022 race, which saw Dibert unseat LeBon. That race featured a second Republican, Kelly Nash, who isn’t running this time around. 

Dibert defeated LeBon by about 3 percentage points in this year’s primary, but two years ago, LeBon defeated Dibert in the primary, only to lose to her in November.

While 21 votes is enough to formally control the House, lawmakers have repeatedly said that a larger majority — on the order of 23 or more members — is necessary to govern comfortably.

At the moment, neither Republicans nor Democrats are in position to hold that many seats, meaning that control of the House could come down to post-election negotiations. 

Both sides are likely to seek the support of the Bush Caucus, a group of rural Democrats and independents. Since the 2016 election, the support of the Bush Caucus has been decisive when it comes to choosing who is in charge of the House.

Reps. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and Neal Foster, D-Nome, members of the Bush Caucus, defeated their primary opponents by large margins. Rematches will take place in November.

Rep. CJ McCormick, D-Bethel, finished second in his primary, behind fellow Democrat Nellie Jimmie of Toksook Bay. A third Democrat, Victoria Sosa, was third.