Kreiss-Tomkins wins Alaska outright on affordability platform

Democrats take governorship majority, first since 2010

Kreiss-Tomkins needed no additional rounds of vote counting after taking more than 50% of first-choice votes, securing an outright victory. Alaska, unlike most states, lets voters 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, 37 and widely known as JKT, mounted a political comeback three years after departing the Alaska house of representatives. The former state legislator traveled extensively through the state during the campaign, building support around economic concerns and a promise to change the direction of Alaska’s government. A photograph published with the Guardian’s report, credited to Emily Mesner/Reuters, showed him with supporters during an election-night watch party in Anchorage on 3 November 2026.

The campaign’s platform centered on affordability, full funding for public education and corporate income taxes for all oil and gas producers. Kreiss-Tomkins also pushed for a temporary halt to new datacenter developments until state lawmakers establish regulations governing their construction.

Kreiss-Tomkins sharply criticized the leadership of outgoing Republican governor Mike Dunleavy throughout the campaign, arguing that Alaska had become “broken” during Dunleavy’s eight years in office. The deterioration of the state’s ferry system was among his criticisms; Kreiss-Tomkins said the network had been left in disarray as service to numerous communities was drastically reduced. For south-east Alaska communities that lack road connections, including some with limited access to air travel, the ferry network is a critical transportation link.

“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.”

Despite that criticism, Kreiss-Tomkins presented himself as a leader willing to work across political divisions and pledged to assemble a cabinet that includes Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The Associated Press called the race on Friday, 10 days after the polls closed on 3 November. Kreiss-Tomkins defeated three Republican opponents, including a candidate backed by Donald Trump, becoming the first Democrat elected governor of Alaska since 1998. The victory lifted Democrats to 30 US governorships.

With few ballots left to count for Alaska’s midterm US Senate election, Democrat Mary Peltola on Saturday was leading Republican incumbent Dan S Sullivan, Alaska Public Media reported. That had prompted MS Now to characterize that Senate race as “leans Democratic”.

The Alaska result came days after Democrats scored another major gubernatorial win in Kansas, a state the Guardian described as staunchly conservative. In that race, Democratic state senator Cindy Holscher narrowly defeated Republican state senate president Ty Masterson, who received Trump’s endorsement. Holscher repeatedly highlighted Masterson’s ties to the Republican president while maintaining that she would remain willing to cooperate with the Trump administration on issues where common ground could be found.

The Guardian reported that the back-to-back victories in Alaska and Kansas underscore the scale of Democratic gains in a nationwide electoral shift, and that 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 state governments across the US.

The Guardian reported that Democrats had also taken control of governor’s offices in several other longtime Republican strongholds, including Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and Texas. Alongside the Alaska and Kansas wins, the Democratic party won gubernatorial elections over Republicans in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas, putting it in control of a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. Gina Hinojosa is the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in 35 years and also the state’s first Hispanic governor.

The Guardian wrote that a major factor in the GOP’s midterm defeat is the unpopularity of Trump, whom most Republican lawmakers clung to even as polls indicated voters did not support his immigration crackdown, tariffs, the war with Iran or his signature domestic policy bill.