Governor’s race moves from ‘Likely Republican’ to ‘Toss Up’ at election-forecasting website

Republicans being unwilling to support more than one candidate on ranked choice ballot cited as factor by Sabato’s Crystal Ball

The Office of the Governor at the Alaska State Capitol in August of 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Independent)

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

A major shift in the predicted outcome of the race for governor in Alaska, which last elected a Democrat in 1998, occurred Thursday when the election-forecasting website Sabato’s Crystal Ball changed its rating from "Likely Republican" to "Toss Up."

The shift occurred three days after the certification of the state’s primary election that resulted in Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins facing Republicans Bernadette Wilson, Dave Bronson and Candice English. The Crystal Ball site states Alaska’s ranked-choice ballot system that many Republicans oppose is a primary reason for the change.

"Ballot exhaustion — in which supporters of the Republican candidates don’t rank other candidates in the ranked-choice voting allocation — threatens Republican chances," the website notes.

Also, the website asserts the three candidates getting the most votes in the primary — Kreiss-Tomkins, Wilson and Bronson — aren’t proven statewide contenders in a general election. English is even less known, since she was the low-profile running mate of former Attorney General Treg Taylor, who was disqualified from the ballot on Monday with English replacing him at the top of the ticket.

The Kreiss-Tomkins campaign, in a text message seeking donors, stated in response to the rating change "we're only in this position because we did what Alaskans wanted and unified around what actually matters: ending the Dunleavy era of decline and building a movement that advocates for our schools, protects our fisheries, and empowers the working Alaskans who built our state."

The Wilson and Bronson campaigns did not immediately respond to inquiries by the Juneau Independent on Thursday afternoon.

Another major campaign rating website, The Cook Political Report, still listed the governor’s race as "Likely Republican" as of Thursday evening.

The last Democrat elected governor in Alaska was Tony Knowles in 1998. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy was elected to a second term with 50.3% of the first-choice vote, avoiding a ranked choice runoff. However, in a poll released in February he was the least-popular governor in the U.S., suffering a sharp drop in rating from just a few months earlier.

Kreiss-Tomkins won this year’s primary with 22.5% of the vote, followed by fellow Democrat Tom Begich at 20.8%. Begich quickly dropped out and endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins, although their combined total was less than the more than 50% of votes split among 12 Republican candidates.

Wilson was the top Republican finisher with 10.1%, followed by Bronson at 8.1% and Taylor at 7.3%. Some party leaders urged the top contenders to unite around a single candidate, but they declined to do so.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.