4 Special Coverage

Alaska’s three presidential electors cast their votes for Donald Trump Tuesday at a ceremony in Anchorage.

The three electors, selected by the Alaska Republican Party, were Rick Whitbeck, Ron Johnson and Eileen Becker. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees elections, introduced them during the brief gathering at the Dena’ina Center.

“Our three electoral votes are modest, but they symbolize the votes and the aspiration and the voice of all Alaskans, from the biggest communities to the smallest villages and most remote places that we have in Alaska,” she said. “These votes remind us that every state, every individual, has a stake in the direction of our nation.”

Though the electors typically cast their votes in Juneau, they met in Anchorage this year to make travel easier, according to the Division of Elections.

The electors signed certificates that will be shipped to Washington, D.C. where they’ll be counted by the next Congress on Jan. 6. The count will be overseen by Trump’s opponent in the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Similar scenes took place across the country Tuesday as 535 other electors voted for their state’s chosen candidate. Trump defeated Harris with 312 electoral votes after winning all seven swing states in the Nov. 5 election.

Trump returns to office Jan. 20.

Alaska’s minimum wage workers will get a tiny bump in pay starting on Jan. 1 before a larger increase becomes effective six months later.

The state’s minimum wage will increase by 18 cents to $11.91 an hour at the start of the new year, the result of a ballot measure passed 10 years ago, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development said on Wednesday.

The bigger increase will be on July 1, when the minimum wage is set to rise to $13 an hour, the result of a ballot measure approved by voters this year. The minimum wage is set to increase again in 2026 to $14 an hour, to $15 an hour in 2027 and in subsequent years, increase to adjust for inflation.

The 2014 ballot initiative also included an inflation adjuster. The upcoming 18-cent-an-hour increase was calculated according to that adjuster, the department said. The calculation used the consumer price index for the Anchorage metropolitan area, which increased by 1.5% in 2023, the department said.

Alaska’s minimum wage also applies, indirectly, to salaried employees, under state law. The relevant statute requires salaried employees to be paid at least twice the amount that minimum-wage workers would earn for a full workweek. Starting Jan. 1, that minimum pay for salaried workers will rise from $938.40 to $952.80 for a 40-hour workweek, the department said.

This year’s Ballot Measure 1, in addition to increasing the minimum wage, mandates a system of paid sick leave, with leave days to be accrued over time by workers, and bars employers from requiring employees to attend political or religious meetings unrelated to their job duties.

Supporters of this year’s ballot measure said the wage increases and other benefits were overdue in Alaska and would benefit the economy.

Even at the $13-an-hour rate to start on July 1, Alaska will continue to have the lowest minimum wage of all U.S. West Coast states, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Opponents, including trade groups representing restaurant and bar owners, tourism companies and oilfield-service companies, campaigned against the ballot measure, arguing that it would harm businesses.

Alaska’s election results were made official on Saturday, after the state review board finished certifying the results. Here are five takeaways from the final results:

There were no changes in the outcomes, but the margin defeating ranked choice repeal grew

The margin between the votes rejecting the repeal of the state’s open primary and ranked choice voting system and those in favor of it grew. There were 737 more votes against Ballot Measure 2 than for it, an increase of 73 votes compared with the margin when the unofficial count was completed on Nov. 20.

Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Nick Begich’s 7,876-vote margin of victory over U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, after ranked choice tabulation was slightly smaller than the unofficial results.

In the state Senate, five Democrats and five Republicans won, leaving the partisan makeup of the chamber unchanged, at 11 Republicans and nine Democrats.

In the Alaska House, 21 Republicans, 14 Democrats and five independents were elected. That’s one fewer Republican and one more Democrat than the outgoing Legislature.

Voters passed Ballot Measure 1 by nearly 16 percentage points. The measure will increase the minimum wage in three steps over the next two and a half years, reaching $15 per hour in July 2027. It also mandates paid sick leave for all Alaska workers, and bars employers from requiring workers to attend meetings on political and religious issues.

Trump won Alaska by a bigger margin than 2020, but the state is trending away from Republicans compared with other states

President-elect Donald Trump won Alaska by a 13.13-percentage point margin, more than 3 points better than in 2020. Trump’s margin was 11.58 points more than his national popular vote margin, which currently stands at 1.55 percentage points.

It’s the 15th consecutive time that the Republican candidate won Alaska’s three Electoral College votes for president.

But while Alaska remains a red state, it’s less Republican compared with the rest of the country than it has been in a long time. The Republican margin over the Democrats ranked 22nd among the states — that is, Trump defeated Kamala Harris by a bigger margin in 21 other states.

That’s the lowest-ranking performance for a Republican in Alaska relative to other states since Richard Nixon in 1972. Since George W. Bush’s margin in Alaska was the fourth-highest among the states in 2000, Alaska has been drifting away from being one of the more Republican states: In 2004, Alaska had the eighth-biggest Republican margin; in 2008, with Gov. Sarah Palin on the ballot, it was sixth; in 2012, 16th; in 2016, 19th; and in 2020, 20th.

Turnout was down compared with four years ago, especially in rural Alaska

There were 340,981 ballots cast in Alaska this year, which is more than 20,000 fewer than four years ago, when 361,400 Alaskans voted.

Because there were more than 15,000 more people registered in the state, the turnout percentage drop was relatively steep, from 60.67% in 2020 to 55.8% this year. However, the number of registered voters is actually higher than the number of voting eligible people in the state, since voter registration is nearly universal, while legal requirements mean it can take years for voters who leave the state to be removed from the rolls if they don’t notify the Division of Elections.

Turnout declined in the four northern and western state House districts more than the state as a whole, after a similar decline in 2022. For example, House District 40, which covers the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs, has the same boundaries as four years ago, but saw the number of ballots cast drop 4,677 to 3,362, a 28% decline. Direct comparisons are harder for the other rural districts, since some precincts were moved to House District 36 in the Interior. But the drop in rural voting was consistently greater than the statewide decline.

The parties’ geographic strengths shifted

For decades, Republicans were strong in South Anchorage, while Democrats excelled in rural Alaska. This year, that balance of power shifted, with Harris winning three of the six Anchorage districts that are mostly south of Dowling Road on her way to winning more votes than Trump across the city.

But Trump performed relatively strongly in rural northern and western areas, winning House District 40 by nearly 10 percentage points after losing it to President Joe Biden in 2020, and cutting the margins in the traditionally Democratic strongholds in the Bering Strait and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta regions.

In Southeast Alaska, House District 1, which includes Ketchikan, voted more Republican than four years earlier, while Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley continued to move toward the Democrats.

The Kenai Peninsula and Matanuska-Susitna boroughs remain the mainstays of Republican statewide wins.

In the Interior, the congressional and legislative Democrats outperformed Harris in Fairbanks.

Both conservatives and progressives have things to cheer about

For Alaska Republicans, Trump’s win means the White House will be more likely to approve resource development projects than it was under Biden.

Begich’s defeat of Peltola returns the state to the all-Republican congressional delegation it has had since 1981, with the exception of Peltola’s two-plus years in the U.S. House and Begich’s uncle Mark Begich’s six years as a U.S. senator, from 2009 to 2015.

In the state Senate, more-conservative Republicans will be a part of an official caucus for the first time in two years. While the caucus breakdown isn’t finalized, it looks like the Senate minority is doubling in size, from three to six senators. Senate caucuses must have five members to be officially recognized under legislative rules. That means minority-caucus senators will again sit on committees.

For Alaska Democrats, Peltola’s win in 2022 was historic, and her defeat this year is a disappointment.

However, the Legislature is positioned to have two mostly Democratic majority caucuses – albeit in bipartisan or multipartisan coalitions. The currently announced House majority has all of the 14 House Democrats and five independents, as well as two Republicans. The currently announced Senate majority has all nine Democratic senators and five of the 11 Republicans.

If most Democrats are in the majorities it both chambers, it would be for the first time in nearly 44 years, since June 1981. All four caucuses are still trying to woo members, so there is still time for changes ahead of the scheduled Jan. 21, 2025, start to the 34th Alaska Legislature.

And both ballot measure outcomes were victories for progressives, who supported the labor-backed Ballot Measure 1 and tended to oppose the Ballot Measure 2 repeal of ranked choice voting.

The state and the Alaska Republican Party are gearing up for a recount of Ballot Measure 2. The initiative to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked choice voting failed by just 664 votes in the Nov. 5 election

State Party Chair Carmela Warfield announced that the party is assembling a legal team for the recount and has hired attorney Harmeet Dhillon. Dhillon is a frequent guest on Fox News and has represented President-elect Donald Trump in election cases.

Warfield did not respond to an interview request but said in a social media post this weekend that the party would make its recount request once the election is certified, which is slated for Nov. 30.

Anchorage attorney Scott Kendall, the architect of Alaska’s voting system, is confident the results will hold up.

“It’s clear to me that Alaskans voted to keep open primaries and ranked choice, including the tens of thousands of voters who both voted for President Trump, voted for Rep-elect Begich, but also voted no on 2,” said Kendall, who expects to participate in the recount on behalf of Alaskans who oppose repeal.

Kendall said he doesn’t know of any statewide recount that has changed a margin this large. He recalled the recount four years ago of the measure that established the Alaska voting method.

“In 2020 they did not only a recount, they did a hand audit of the election,” he said. “And ultimately, the outcome in that hand audit was 31 votes different from the original outcome.”

Discrepancies are typically due to stray ink marks on a ballot or ovals that a voter didn’t fill in completely, he said.

Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom announced Monday that the state is preparing for a recount. Since the results are so close, less than half of a percentage point, the state will pay for it.

She also said a recount opens the door for more absentee ballots to be counted. The deadline for absentee ballots to arrive was 10 days after Election Day, or 15 days for ballots mailed from other countries. But state law says that a recount extends that deadline, so any absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but arrived late will be counted until the recount is complete.

Separately, the Division of Elections says the State Review Board has finished its post-election audit. During that process, officials hand-count ballots from a random precinct in each state House district, to ensure that the human count matches the machine count. A discrepancy of more than 1% would require a hand-count of all ballots in the district. Elections director Carol Beecher said by email that no discrepancy of that size was found. She didn’t say if the hand-counts revealed any discrepancies.

Two Alaska House Democrats appear to have lost their seats, flipping party control of one of them, according to unofficial results posted by the Alaska Division of Election on Wednesday.

North Anchorage Rep. Cliff Groh lost by 23 votes to Republican challenger David Nelson in the final unofficial count. Groh had maintained a slim lead since election night. Wednesday’s final count was the first time the race tilted toward Nelson.

Groh was one of 22 members of a Democrat-heavy bipartisan caucus that is seeking to take control of the Alaska House of Representatives from a Republican-led coalition. Groh’s loss leaves an apparent count of 21 Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans in the caucus, a bare majority in the 40-member House.

In the four-way race for House District 38, Bethel Rep. CJ McCormick trails fellow Democrat Nellie Jimmie by 58 votes following ranked choice tabulation. But election officials say the tabulation run Wednesday did not include all ballots cast in that race. A final count is expected ahead of election certification scheduled for the end of this month.

Ranked choice tabulation determined the winner Wednesday of seven other legislative races where no candidate got more than 50% of the vote, plus it  determined the winner of the U.S. House race, giving Republican Nick Begich III a victory over Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola.

Here’s who won the state House and Senate contests that went to ranked choice tabulation. In all cases, the candidate with the most votes ahead of tabulation wound up winning.

• In Senate District D, a northern and central Kenai Peninsula race that includes incumbent Sen. Jesse Bjorkman and conservative challenger Ben Carpenter, both Republicans, and Democrat Tina Wegener, Bjorkman held on to win, besting Carpenter by a margin of 54.7% to 45.3% in the final round of tabulation.
• In Senate District F, on the Anchorage Hillside, where incumbent Republican Sen. James Kaufman faced Democrat Janice Park and Republican Harold Borbridge, Kaufman maintained his lead to beat Park in the final round, 52.8% to 47.2%.
• In the Senate District L race to represent Chugiak-Eagle River, where incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Merrick faced conservative Republican challenger Jared Goecker and Democrat Lee Hammermeister, Merrick came out on top over Goecker in the final round, 55.5% to 44.5%.
• In House District 6, including Homer and the southern Kenai Peninsula, where incumbent Republican Rep. Sarah Vance was challenged by independent Brent Johnson and Republican Dawson Slaughter, Vance won over Johnson in the final round, 52.3% to 47.7%
• In House District 28, an all-Republican race for an open seat in Wasilla that includes Elexie Moore, Steve Menard and Jessica Wright, Moore won over Menard in the final round, 50.1% to 49.9%, a difference of 13 votes.

Three other races were tabulated despite the Division of Elections not having a complete count of the voters’ ranked choices.

Though election officials have a count of first-choice votes from those districts, which call in their preliminary results by phone, the Division of Elections has not received the paper ballots by mail from some rural Alaska polling stations. The paper ballots must be scanned to account for voters’ second, third and fourth choices, said Brian Jackson, the election program manager at the division.

“The manually entered votes are not included in the ranked choice tabulation,” he said in a brief interview at Division of Elections headquarters in Juneau.

That said, here are the preliminary results of tabulation in those races:

• In House District 36, covering a wide swath of the Interior stretching from Glennallen to Delta Junction to the Yukon River drainage, where Republican Rebecca Schwanke, Democrat Brandon Putuuqti Kowalski, Republican Pamela Goode and Libertarian James Fields competed for an open seat, Schwanke won over Kowalski in the final round, 56.6% to 43.4%.
• In House District 38, the Lower Kuskokwim, where Democrat Nellie Unangik Jimmie faced incumbent Democratic Rep. CJ McCormick, Veterans Party candidate Willy Keppel and Democrat Victoria Sosa. Jimmie bested McCormick in the final round, 51% to 49%.
• In House District 40, the North Slope and Northwest Arctic, where Democrats Robyn Niayuq Burke and Saima Ikrik Chase faced Republican-turned-independent Rep. Thomas Ikaaq Baker, Burke won over Chase in the final round, 60.1% to 39.9%.

It was not clear Wednesday how many ballots remained untabulated, nor whether they could have a significant impact on the results.

The Division of Elections plans to run a final tabulation before certifying the election. Certification is planned for Nov. 30, though the date could change as the State Review Board performs its audit and other post-election quality control procedures.

Correction: A previous version of this story swapped the percentages for the House District 38 race. 

A ballot measure that would repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primary system has very narrowly failed, according to final unofficial results released Wednesday by the Division of Elections.

The final margin for Ballot Measure 2, pending certification, is 664 out of 340,110 votes, with “No” outpacing “Yes” 50.1% to 49.9%.

The No on 2 campaign said the failure of the ballot measure was “a win by Alaskans, for Alaskans, which will benefit our state for generations to come.”

“We are thrilled that Alaskans from all over the state with diverse views and different backgrounds came together to preserve the system that empowers voters to elect representatives that will put Alaska first,” No on 2 Executive Director Juli Lucky and Campaign Chair Lesil McGuire said in a statement emailed to reporters.

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“Yes” on Ballot Measure 2 led at the end of election night counting, but its margin shrank little by little as absentee, questioned and early ballots were counted. “No” overtook “Yes” on Monday by a razor-thin margin as election officials continued to tally ballots.

Former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, an advocate for repeal, said he hopes the Legislature will pass a law getting rid of the voting system, but if that doesn’t happen, another repeal initiative is possible.

“I would say half of Alaskan voters were influenced, at least in part, and maybe in large part, by big money from outside the state,” he said by phone. “And ours was a grassroots, homebody campaign.”

The No on 2 campaign attracted nearly $14 million in contributions, largely from outside the state, and outspent the Yes on 2 campaign by a 100-to-one margin.

The race is likely headed to a recount. Alaska law allows candidates and campaigns to request recounts, and the state must pay for them in races won by less than 0.5%. Recounts are not automatic except in races that end in a tie.

Phil Izon, who led the campaign in support of the ballot measure, said he planned to submit a recount request once the election is certified, though he said he was “not optimistic” it would change the outcome.

Izon also said he plans to submit a petition to place a similar ballot measure before voters in 2026. He said he was encouraged by the failure of ballot measures in other states this year that would have implemented election reforms similar to Alaska’s system.

“Against all odds and with just a fraction of the resources, we stood toe-to-toe with the giants [who] outfunded us 100-to-one and came within a whisper of victory,” he said by phone. “With renewed energy and a belief in our cause, we can turn that razor-thin loss into a decisive win.”

Before considering a recount, Leman said he wanted to look into some allegations of “irregularities” in which ballots were deemed qualified. He said in a few cases he thought the call might be questionable. But he said he has no reason to suspect fraud and the number of ballots was relatively small.

“I would say it’s more than a dozen, maybe two dozen, and that wouldn’t make the difference on this ballot measure,” he said.

Vote counting concluded Wednesday, the final day for absentee ballots to arrive from U.S. citizens living abroad. The results will remain unofficial until they’re certified by the Division of Elections. The estimated date for that is Nov. 30.

This story has been updated.