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.
• Andrew Kitchenman has covered state government in Alaska since 2016, serving as the Capitol reporter for Alaska Public Media and KTOO before joining the Alaska Beacon. Before this, he covered state and local governments on the East Coast – primarily in New Jersey – for more than 15 years. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
