Alaska Elections

The gap between Democratic Sen. Hollis French and Republican challenger Bob Bell for Senate District J has narrowed to 56 votes.

The state Division of Elections counted absentee and question ballots Tuesday.  French has  7,562 votes to Bell’s  7,506 for the Anchorage seat.  Coming into the ballot count, French had a 247-vote lead.

Republican Rep. Lance Pruitt widened his lead by 216 votes over Democrat Rep. Pete Peterson for Anchorage House District 25 (Pruitt:  4,095; Peterson: 3,879).   Peterson was down by 96 votes after Election Day results.  The Republican caucus recently named Pruitt House Majority Leader.

Pruitt and Peterson were thrown into the same House district by redistricting.

More outstanding ballots will be counted on Nov. 19 and 21, the last day to receive ballots postmarked from overseas.

Haines Republican Representative Bill Thomas now holds a two-vote lead over Sitka Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins in the race for House District 34.

Here are the new totals, from Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai:

• Bill Thomas: 4,054
• Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins: 4,052

Kreiss-Tomkins watched the absentee ballot count in person today.

“It’s monotonous,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s literally feeding a ballot counter thousands of paper stock ballots.”

But the counting isn’t over. More ballots could still arrive by mail, two more count dates are on the calendar, and anything can happen.

“There are still 167 absentee ballots that were requested and haven’t come in by mail yet,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “At least a couple of those, and probably some kind of percentage of those, will come in by mail, and who knows what way they’re going to swing.”

There also are three question ballots from Port Alexander left to count.

Thomas, also reached by phone in Juneau, called the election a “see-saw,” and reiterated his worry about Southeast’s clout in the next legislative session.

He says he’ll have a seat on Finance, but has already lost the chairmanship. And he noted that Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman – although returned to office by voters – will no longer be co-chair of Senate Finance.

“Very rarely has a district ever lost two co-chairs of Finance, in the history of the state. This might be the first time,” Thomas said. “We’re going to have to fight hard to get over it, either one way or the other. It’ll put more work on either Jonathan or I. There’s less capital and more people who want it. Either way, ti’s going to be a tough battle for whoever.”

Additional ballot counts, for absentee votes that have yet to arrive by mail, are set for Nov. 19 and 21.

The district includes the candidates’ hometowns as well as Metlakatla, Craig, Hoonah, Angoon, Kake, Klukwan, Port Alexander, Pelican, Elfin Cove, Klawock and Hydaburg.

Representative Mike Chenault will return for his third term as House Speaker when the 2013 Alaska Legislature convenes in January.

House Republicans organized Thursday, two days after the general election.

Representative Lance Pruitt of Anchorage is majority leader, Craig Johnson of Anchorage retains chairmanship of House Rules, and Kodiak’s Alan Austerman and Mat-Su’s Bill Stoltze are co-chairs of the House Finance Committee.

Juneau Representative Cathy Munoz says she likes the geographic make-up of House leadership. However, for the moment she is the only member of the House Finance Committee from Southeast Alaska.

“Finance committee members are just assigned to the finance committee, because each of the majority members then manages one or more of the state departmental budgets. So it’s a lot of work,” Munoz says. “I’ve put in a request for the Department of Administration, since that’s such a big department in Juneau and so important to so many issues that affect Juneau and our region.”

House leaders have promised Haines Republican Bill Thomas a Finance Committee seat, if he beats Sitka Democrat Jonathon Kreiss-Tomkins, who is current 43 votes ahead in the House District 34 race.

Meanwhile, Munoz hopes her position on Finance allows her to secure financing for a variety of regional projects.

“I’ll be looking out for not only Juneau but all of the communities in Southeast that have energy projects before the Finance Committee,” she says. “Education funding is a priority, and making sure that infrastructure needs in the capital are taken care of, you know, we have ongoing needs in the State Capitol building.”

Munoz also says she’ll focus on continued funding for a new State Library, Archives and Museums facility set to break ground in Juneau soon. She’d also like a new state office building, though she admits that’s more of a long term goal.

Twenty-five Republicans and 15 Democrats were elected to the House. Rural Alaska Democrats Neal Foster, Bryce Edgmon, Bob Herron and Ben Nageak have joined the Republican majority.

Juneau’s other Representative, Beth Kerttula was named Minority Leader late Friday. It’s a post she’s held since 2007.

Kerttula’s House District 32 now includes Petersburg, Skagway, Gustavus and Tenakee Springs thanks to the state’s once a decade redistricting process. Previously, her district encompassed just downtown Juneau and Douglas Island.

Anchorage Rep. Chris Tuck will be the House Democratic Whip, and Rep. Max Gruenberg, also of Anchorage, is House Democratic Floor Leader.

House Democrats also named Les Gara, of Anchorage, and David Guttenberg and Scott Kawasaki, both of Fairbanks, to the House Finance Committee. The 11-member minority is guaranteed three finance seats, but if Democrats’ numbers drop to ten, the caucus would only have two.

“Part of organization is figuring out where the numbers are, how many seats you have and then planning for it,” she says. “We’re very optimistic that we hold this or go up.

Kerttula says other minority committee assignments will be announced after absentee and question ballots are counted.  Two races are two close to call:  Jonathon Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka is just 43 votes ahead of Republican Rep. Bill Thomas of Haines.  Pete Peterson of Anchorage is 97 votes behind Republican Lance Pruitt.

It was no surprise that Alaska went heavily for the Republican presidential ticket on Election Day. And as usual, the Capital City broke with the statewide trend.

A House District analysis of election returns indicates only 13 of 40 districts voted for President Obama. Alaska has 40 House and 20 Senate districts.

With all precincts counted, the Republican ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won 54.43 percent of the statewide vote, or 121,234 ballots. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden had 41.17 percent, or 91,696 votes. The only outstanding ballots are absentee and questioned. Alaska has three electoral college votes.

In Juneau’s House District 31 and 32, the president garnered 7,884 votes, compared to Romney’s 5,631 votes. The more conservative Mendenhall Valley area, HD 31, is represented by Republican Cathy Munoz, who ran for re-election unopposed.  House District 32, formerly HD 3, now includes parts of the Capital City as well as Petersburg, Skagway and Gustavus.  The old district has traditionally has been represented by a Democrat and Beth Kerttula had no challenger for her bid for an eighth term.  With the expanded district, that could change in the next election.

Both HD 31 and 32 are within Senate District P, represented by Democratic Senator Dennis Egan, who did not stand for re-election.

Tongass Democrats’ chairwoman Nancy Courtney said she was proud of Juneau for “leading the way to re-elect Barack Obama.”

Southeast Alaska House District 34 favored the Democratic president. The district includes Sitka and Haines, Metlakatla, and other southern Southeast villages as well as Hoonah and Angoon. Democrat Jonathon Kreiss-Tomkins currently leads incumbent Republican Rep. Bill Thomas by 43 votes, a race that will be decided by absentee and question ballots.

President Obama also took Anchorage House Districts 15 through 19. Democrats won those House Districts, and all are within Senate districts represented by Democrats. Several large rural Alaska House Districts — 36 through 40 – also represented by Democrats — voted solidly for President Obama. HD 36 is within Senate District R, served by moderate Republican Gary Stevens. The other rural districts have for years elected Democratic senators Lyman Hoffman and Donny Olson.

 

Alaska 2012 General Election Results By District. (Zoom in for more detail.)
Districts are colored by the party affiliation of the candidates voted in. Two Republican candidates equal red, two Democrats equal blue and districts that elected a combination of Republican and Democratic candidates are purple.

Click here to larger version.

Every Republican in the Alaska Senate is now a member of the majority caucus.

Kodiak Senator Gary Stevens, who served as Senate President the previous four years, joined Thursday afternoon. He’ll chair the Senate Education Committee, and serve on the Legislative Council and as chair of the World Trade Committee.

Sitka Senator Bert Stedman joined the majority Thursday evening. He will chair the Health and Social Services Committee after previously serving as co-chair of the powerful Finance Committee.

Stevens and Stedman were among the leaders of the Senate Bipartisan Working Group, which formed in 2008, and last year included all ten Senate Democrats and six Republicans.

The newly elected Republican majority organized Thursday, with Senator Charlie Huggins of Wasilla as president. It is the first time in six years the state senate has not been organized as a coalition of Republicans and Democrats. Stevens and Stedman were not among the organizers.

Stevens and Stedman were forceful opponents of Gov. Sean Parnell’s plan to reduce oil taxes over the last two sessions.

Other senators in the Republican majority leadership include John Coghill of North Pole as Majority Leader and Lesil McGuire of Anchorage is the new Rules chair. Kevin Meyer of Anchorage and Pete Kelly of Fairbanks are the new Finance co-chairs.

In a news release, the Republican majority caucus says it will focus on increasing oil production, delivering affordable energy to Alaskans, and developing sustainable budgets. It also announced interest in helping declining salmon runs, improving graduation rates and job training, and establishing Alaska’s role as the gateway to the Arctic.

 

A few Capital City Republicans and Tongass Democrats gathered at Juneau’s Baranoff Hotel Tuesday night to watch election results come in.

While Democrats were celebrating another term for President Barack Obama,  Republicans were pondering Romney’s concession speech.  He called for bipartisan cooperation and said the nation’s “leaders have to reach across the aisle.”

Those words inspired some  Capital City Republicans, but Joe Geldhof said the fact Republicans took so long to embrace Romney as the Presidential candidate hurt his campaign.

“They did not run a particularly good campaign,” Geldhof said as he watched Alaska election returns.   “I liked that he asked everyone to think about the president and to talk about bipartisanship and actually praying for the country, which is something everyone says but most people don’t do.”

Down the hall from Juneau’s Election Central in the Baranoff Treadwell Room, Tongass Democrats watched Romney’s concession speech and the President’s acceptance speech.

As usual, Alaska went heavily for the Republican presidential ticket.  With more than 98 percent of the statewide vote counted, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won 120, 329 votes in the state, compared to 90,743 votes for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.  But in the Capital City, the Democratic ticket won.

Tongass Democrats’ chairwoman Nancy Courtney said she was proud of Juneau for “leading the way to re-elect Barack Obama.”

Coattails

Republican legislative candidates rode Romney’s coattails in conservative Alaska, while Democrats lost seats in both the State House and the Senate.

Courtney said she hopes the Senate will still organize as a bipartisan working group.

The current Senate has ten Democrats and ten Republicans, with all Democrats and six Republicans belonging to the coalition.

“It is what Alaskans should do on both sides to bring people together to do what’s right for Alaskans and have a balanced agenda,” Courtney said, “and not to see the partisanship that we see  at the national level.”

In this election, 13 Republicans have won Senate seats, but several are members of the current bipartisan group, as are the seven Democrats.  The Senate is expected to organize later Wednesday.

Twenty-five Republicans have won House seats, with HD 34 too close to call until absentee and question ballots are counted.  The House majority and minority caucuses are expected to organize on Thursday.