Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, an energetic former state lawmaker who ran as a pragmatic coalition-builder, will be Alaska’s next governor, The Associated Press said. He will be the first Democrat elected to lead the state since 1998 and the youngest governor in state history.
Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins, 37, defeated Bernadette Wilson, a former Republican talk show host who owns a garbage-collection company.
In his victory declaration, Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins said that Alaskans had “voted for change.”
“Our administration will not waste a single day getting to work to solve problems for Alaska,” he added.
Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins is a former ultramarathoner and mountaineer from Sitka who dropped out of Yale to win his first legislative seat at age 23, and then spent a decade building bipartisan coalitions and sounding alarms about the state’s precarious finances.
He visited all 19 of Alaska’s boroughs during his campaign, making promises to rebuild public education and the state’s ferry system, lower the cost of housing and energy, and protect Alaskan fisheries. He also pledged to put Alaska’s finances on a more sustainable footing. That might mean he has to persuade the Legislature to find new revenue sources in an oil-rich state that has no personal income tax or statewide sales tax and has struggled in recent years to fund basic public services while also paying an annual dividend to residents from Alaska’s oil revenues.
“I am the pro-math candidate,” he said at one debate.
Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins won in a state where Democrats make up just 11 percent of the electorate with a campaign built to appeal to moderates and Republicans tired of legislative gridlock in the capital, Juneau. In the final stretch of the campaign, he touted endorsements from a string of Republicans and pledged to appoint a politically balanced transition team and cabinet. He has also promised to live in Juneau, a sore point among some Alaskans tired of governors who essentially commute to the capital from more accessible and urbanized Anchorage.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a conservative Republican barred by term limits from seeking another four years, has clashed repeatedly with the bipartisan coalition that runs the Legislature, a coalition that Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins helped build and lead in his time in the Statehouse.
Over the last two years, Mr. Dunleavy vetoed 31 pieces of legislation, including proposals to restore pensions for public employees and teachers, establish a retirement savings program for private-sector workers, impose new taxes on e-cigarettes and modernize the state’s corporate tax system.
In an interview last month, Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins said he would start his work as governor by addressing unfinished business, including bills passed by the Legislature but killed by Mr. Dunleavy. When he takes office on Dec. 7, Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins will enjoy a short-term budget surplus thanks to the war in Iran, which sent oil prices skyward. But big decisions still loom about how to ensure long-term financial stability given the state’s reliance on the oil and gas industry.
“The state is too fragile already,” he said. “Alaska is paying the price of uncertainty, and this is just something we need to get done.”
Ms. Wilson, who finished second in the four-person race, campaigned on a promise to restore full dividend payments from the oil-revenue account known as the Permanent Fund, which comes from levies from the state’s oil and gas production. She also said she would take a tougher approach with Republican lawmakers who work across party lines.
She referred to Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins, known as J.K.T. in Alaska political circles and in campaign materials, as “Just Keep Taxing.”
But Republican infighting helped Mr. Kreiss-Tomkins win a majority of votes even before Alaska’s ranked-choice process kicked in: The other two Republicans in the four-person field refused Ms. Wilson’s calls to exit the race, prompting internal sniping. President Trump, who carried Alaska in all three campaigns, endorsed Ms. Wilson. But in a year of Democratic triumphs, the president’s backing didn’t provide the boost Republicans expected.
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