Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has won Alaska’s governor’s race, becoming the first member of his party elected to the office since 1998 and bringing Democrats’ total to 30 US governorships after a midterm election that has shifted political power across the country.
The race was called on Friday, 10 days after polls closed. Kreiss-Tomkins, a former Alaska state legislator widely known as JKT, defeated three Republican opponents, including a candidate backed by Donald Trump. The victory marked a political comeback three years after he left the Alaska House of Representatives.
Now 37, Kreiss-Tomkins traveled extensively across the state during the campaign, building support around economic concerns and a promise to change the direction of Alaska’s government. His platform centered on affordability, full funding for public education and a requirement that all oil and gas producers pay corporate income taxes. He also called for a temporary halt to new datacenter developments until state lawmakers establish regulations governing their construction.
A campaign built around change
Throughout the race, Kreiss-Tomkins sharply criticized the leadership of outgoing Republican governor Mike Dunleavy, arguing that Alaska had become “broken” during Dunleavy’s eight years in office. “Alaskans are hungry for change,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “We’ve been running the same campaign since we launched in February, and I don’t take anyone’s vote for granted.”
Among his criticisms was the deterioration of the state’s ferry system, which Kreiss-Tomkins said had been left in disarray as service to numerous communities was drastically reduced. The ferry network is a critical transportation link for communities in southeast Alaska that lack road connections, including some with limited access to air travel.
Despite his criticism of the outgoing administration, Kreiss-Tomkins presented himself as a leader willing to work across political divisions. He pledged to assemble a cabinet that includes Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Unlike most states, Alaska allows voters to rank candidates by preference through ranked-choice voting, a system that also permits multiple candidates from the same political party to run against one another. Kreiss-Tomkins avoided the need for additional rounds of vote counting after winning more than 50% of first-choice votes, securing an outright victory.
The Alaska result came just days after Democrats scored another major gubernatorial win in staunchly conservative Kansas, where Democratic state senator Cindy Holscher narrowly defeated Republican state Senate president Ty Masterson. Masterson, who received Trump’s endorsement, faced a campaign in which Holscher repeatedly highlighted his ties to the Republican president. At the same time, Holscher maintained that she would remain willing to cooperate with the Trump administration on issues where common ground could be found.
The back-to-back victories in Alaska and Kansas underscore the scale of Democratic gains in what has become a nationwide electoral shift. The party’s long-anticipated “blue wave” has now materialized, with Democrats flipping eight seats in the US Senate, gaining more than two dozen seats in the House and significantly expanding their control of governors’ offices after the 3 November midterms.
Such gains have handed Democrats a strong majority in Congress for the latter half of Trump’s second presidency, delivering a major shift in the balance of power in Washington and in state governments across the US.
With few ballots left to count in Alaska’s midterm US Senate election, Democrat Mary Peltola was leading Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan on Saturday. The Senate contest was characterized as leaning Democratic as counting continued.
Beyond Alaska and Kansas, Democrats won governorships in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas, putting them in control of a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. Gina Hinojosa became the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in 35 years and the state’s first Hispanic governor.
The Republican midterm defeat unfolded amid Trump’s unpopularity. Most Republican lawmakers stayed aligned with him even as polls indicated voters did not support his immigration crackdown, tariffs, the war with Iran or his signature domestic policy bill.