The 2024 general election is finally over! Well kind of. There are still tens of thousands of early, absentee, and question ballots to count in Alaska. Those will be counted on Tuesday. Even with some key races not decided, the House and Senate both announced coalition majorities following the election. The Senate will stay the same but the House will flip from Republican control, unless two House races flip. And there is a lot of speculation that Governor Mike Dunleavy (R – Alaska) may take a job in the new Trump administration, but it’s unclear exactly what he would do.  

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House and Senate quickly organize after election, yet some uncertainty remains

The following is an excerpt from this week’s special edition of the Alaska Political Report. You can click here for more information about the Political Report. A subscription is $1,299/year per organization. Discounted pricing is available for non-profits and government entities. Our coverage of the budget starts with the governor’s proposed budget, and we track everything in detail through the entire process. If you have any questions or would like to subscribe, please email jeff@akpoliticalreport.com.

Following Tuesday’s general election, the House and Senate both quickly organized coalition majorities. While the Senate majority will remain a coalition, the House majority will flip back from Republican control to a majority Democrat-led coalition. 

Each group put out press releases announcing key leadership positions. Republicans in the House and Senate – who will be in the minority in both bodies – have yet to make any announcements or put out press releases about organization. 

The Senate majority will remain mostly intact, though it looks like Republicans will have a real minority next year. Currently, the three-member Republican minority in the Senate is two members short of having enough members to have guaranteed seats on committees, per the Legislature’s Uniform Rules. 

The Senate majority’s press release was more complete, which included key leadership positions. Kodiak Republican Sen. Gary Stevens will remain Senate president. Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski will remain rules chair. Anchorage Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel will remain majority leader. And the three finance-co chairs will remain the same, though Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman will be handling the capital budget instead of the operating budget. Bethel Democratic Sen. Lyman Hoffman will handle the operating budget instead of the capital budget. 

One interesting development in the Senate is it appears Anchorage Republican Sen. James Kaufman will not remain in the majority. Sources report there was a dispute between Kaufman and the majority about committee assignments, specifically the finance committee.

Tok Republican Sen.-elect Mike Cronk and Wasilla Republican Sen.-elect Rob Yundt are both replacing Republican incumbents who are members of the current Senate majority. Cronk will take the seat that Fairbanks Republican Sen. Click Bishop vacated. Yundt beat Wasilla Republican Sen. David Wilson. 

Cronk and Yundt could both conceivably join the majority, but at this point that appears unlikely. Yesterday, Yundt was on the Mike Porcaro show and said that Senate Republicans would soon be making an announcement. And a source in the Senate majority told the Political Report that Cronk would not join unless he was given a seat on the finance committee – something they were not willing to give him. 

At this point it appears Republicans in the Senate minority will have six members: Cronk, Yundt, Kaufman, Palmer Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes, Wasilla Republican Sen. Mike Shower, and North Pole Republican Sen. Robb Myers. 

Keep in mind that negotiations are ongoing and things could change between now and January. 

The race between Fairbanks Democratic Sen. Scott Kawasaki and Republican Leslie Hajdukovich is very close. Kawasaki is up by just 74 votes out of 9,411 votes counted. But many early, absentee, and question ballots remain. However, even if Hajdukovich ends up winning, it’s likely she would join the majority. If she won and joined what looks to be the minority, Fairbanks and the Mat-Su Valley would not have a single member in the Senate majority. 

The House majority’s press release only included three leadership positions: Dillingham independent Rep. Bryce Edgmon will return as speaker (he served as speaker from 2017-2021), Kodiak Republican Rep. Louise Stutes will serve as rules chair, and Anchorage Republican Rep.-elect Chuck Kopp will serve as majority leader.

Stutes and Kopp both served in leadership roles in previous coalition majorities. Kopp lost his seat in 2020 but made a comeback this year, defeating Anchorage Republican Rep. Craig Johnson, the current rules chair. 

Interestingly, the House majority has not yet announced the finance co-chairs. Once they realized they likely had 21, the group wanted to quickly get out an announcement to solidify their majority. They may still be trying to determine who will serve as finance co-chairs, though Nome Democratic Rep. Neal Foster is sure to be one. 

However, the situation in the House is more fluid than the Senate. A few races are close, the closest being between Anchorage Democratic Rep. Cliff Groh and Republican David Nelson. Groh leads Nelson by just 28 votes out of 2,703 votes counted. But many early, absentee, and question ballots remain. If Nelson manages to win, the new coalition majority will have just 21 members – the minimum number to form a majority. 

The race between Anchorage Republican Rep. Stanley Wright and Democrat Ted Eischeid is also close, though Eischeid has a more comfortable lead than Groh. He leads Wright by 111 votes out of 3,937 votes counted. But many more ballots remain. If Nelson and Wright were to both win, the majority that has formed would collapse.

Ketchikan Republican Rep.-elect Jeremy Bynum was at the House majority’s organizational meeting on Wednesday, but he told the Political Report that he has not yet committed to joining their group. 

While offers have been made to some Republicans to join, they either aren’t interested or have not been offered enough to join. 

Fairbanks Republican Rep. Will Stapp told the Political Report, “A win is a win, and they appear to have won 22 seats. This is about ideological principles. The current majority is led by Democrats with a few Republicans. Their priorities seem to be pensions and importing LNG, things that give Republicans pause.” 

Soldotna Republican Rep. Justin Ruffridge declined to provide a comment to the Political Report.  

The next update for outstanding early, absentee, and question ballots will be on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Many candidates will be watching to see if ranked choice voting survives or not. The yes on Ballot Measure 2 – which would repeal open primaries and ranked choice voting – is currently winning 50.84% – 49.16%, but there are tens of thousands of ballots left to be counted.

If the system is repleaded, some Republicans in both bodies will be weary of joining with Democrats out of fear of being primaried. 

Many Votes Left to Count

Unfortunately, the way Alaska counts votes is really screwed up, and has been for a long time. This is NOT the result of ranked choice voting. Because Alaska allows absentee ballots to come in for two weeks after the election (must be postmarked by Election Day) and allows early voting up to the day before the election, they don’t include the absentee and early votes in the election night count that came in four days before Election Day. They do this to prevent people from casting an absentee ballot or early vote and then going to vote on Election Day too. 

This dumb process could and should be fixed. It should not be that hard to process all the absentee and early votes that came in the day before the election and then mark all the books at precincts for those who voted. I sincerely hope the next Legislature fixes this problem. Florida counted more than 10 million votes on Election Day. Our entire state population is 730,000!

It does not help that the Carol Beecher, the director of the Division of Elections (DOE), and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom (R – Alaska), who oversees elections, have not been communicating. Trying to get information from DOE has been very difficult. We don’t even know how many votes are left to be counted.  

I ran some numbers a few days ago. There are at least 24,057 absentee ballots and 21,836 early votes to count. That does not include question ballots. More absentee ballots are sure to come in, so it’s not clear how many are left. Predictions range in the 70,000 – 90,000 range. The next count will be on Tuesday. After that we should know how the very close races will go. These include:

• Representative Mary Peltola (D – Alaska) vs. Republican Nick Begich (Begich leads by 10,133 votes, 49.45% to 45.45%)
• Representative Cliff Groh (D – Anchorage) vs. Republican David Nelson (Groh leads by 28 votes, 50.5% to 49.46%)
• Representative Stanley Wright vs. Democrat Ted Eischeid (Eischeid leads by 111 votes, 51.28% to 48.46%)
• Representative David Eastman (R – Wasilla) vs. Republican Jubilee Underwood (Underwood leads by 211 votes, 51.07% to 47.69%)
• Senator Scott Kawasaki (D – Fairbanks) vs. Republican Leslie Hajdukovich (Kawasaki leads by 74 votes, 50.27% to 49.48%)
• Ballot Measure 2 (yes leads by 4,137 votes, 50.84% to 49.16%)

Dunleavy to D.C.?

There’s been talk for many months that if Donald Trump won the election that he would appoint Governor Dunleavy to his cabinet. And boy did Trump win! I think there is zero chance he appoints Dunleavy to lead the Department of Interior or Department of Energy. They are both too important and Dunleavy does not have the background for either. There might be a case if he was a really good manager, but he definitely ain’t that.  

I could see the Department of Education, but it sounds like Trump wants to eliminate or minimize it. Some sources have told me that Dunleavy may be considered for some kind of oil and gas czar. But I can’t imagine he would leave being governor for that. However, with just two years left in his final term and coalition majorities in the House and Senate, he may be just looking for a lifeboat to get the hell out. 

Trump does like Dunleavy. And this video Trump put out is amazing. He talks about the gasline and the national security importance it has for our country, as well as many other projects. This is great news for Alaska and I truly hope our Legislature will seize the moment and not try and thwart or prevent any of these things from happening.  

This Week’s Loose Unit

This week was one of those super easy weeks. While the Division of Elections was a contender, a true lunatic made this week’s designee clear. This week’s Loose Unit is Anchorage Assembly member Karen Bronga.

This one goes almost without words. During Wednesday’s Assembly meeting, Bronga went full Loose Unit by wearing a Handmaid’s Tale outfit for the meeting! Where the hell did she even get that?! This is another level of loose. Bronga is suffering from a serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Thank god she is not running for another term.

If you have a nomination for this week’s Loose Unit, or if you have any political news, stories or gossip (or any old pics of politicians or public officials) please email me at jeff@alaskalandmine.com.