By AlaskaWatchman.com

Fairbanks election pic

Fairbanks conservatives had a golden opportunity to build on their 2020 victories but were unable to duplicate last year’s success when they won seven of eight borough and city races.

The unofficial results of the Oct. 5 election show that hard-left candidates easily won all three Assembly races, both school board contests and one of two city council seats. Incumbent Borough Mayor Bryce Ward, however, handily defeated his challengers.

About 23% of registered voters participated in the election (17,529 people) with nearly 15,000 choosing to cast their ballots on election day.

Mayor Ward earned 11,376 votes to just 1,387 for his closest challenger, Robert Shields.

The Borough Assembly was a clean sweep for progressives with none of the contests very competitive. For Assembly Seat A, David Guttenberg defeated conservative Kevin McKinley – 7,581 to 6,328. Seat F went to leftist Savannah Fletcher, who easily beat her conservative opponent Patricia Silva – 7,908 to 5,911. For Seat G, Kristin Kelly bested conservative former Assemblyman Lance Roberts – 7,808 to 6,144.

Both hard-left school board incumbents cruised to victory over their pro-life, conservative challengers. Erin Morotti defeated Andrew Graham – 7,223 to 5,593. Likewise, Chrya Sanderson kept her seat with a 7,334 to 6,256 advantage over Jeffery Rentzel.

On the Fairbanks City Council front, the more conservative-minded Jerry Cleworth defeated leftist incumbent Shoshana Kun – 1,801 to 1,246. In the other city council race, leftist June Rogers defeated conservative Jonathan Bagwill – 1,588 to 1,355.

Click here to read the Fairbanks City Council election summary report.

Click here to support Alaska Watchman reporting.

Leftists win 6 of 8 Fairbanks races, but borough mayor retains post

Joel Davidson
Joel is Editor-in-Chief of the Alaska Watchman. Joel is an award winning journalist and has been reporting for over 24 years, He is a proud father of 8 children, and lives in Palmer, Alaska.


52 Comments

  • NAV says:

    Fairbanks Mayor is targeted by leftists

    • Sean P. Ryan says:

      That was two years ago. He’s term-limited and clearly has further aspirations in politics, considering he sold his businesses after taking office as mayor. It’s that future campaign you should be worried about if you seek to defend him.

  • Jen says:

    Fairbanks needs more evangelism from those self proclaimed Fairbanks Christians reading the gospels and creating relationships with their neighbors like what any other place in Alaska needs: more potlucks and fellowships and bible studies.
    I bet those leftist minded candidates appeared more neighborly than those conservatives defeated.

  • NorthernMegaWood says:

    We are still using Dominion machines. The peeps working the precincts are pushing felt tip pens to mark ballots with. I used my own black pen to mark my ballot. It sez at the top of the ballot no red ink, only blue or black ink. The peeps said regular pens are bad for the optics. I told them we need to get rid of those Dominion machines and the felt pens, they told me those are new machines. I think they are steeling our election. I want a full forensic audit of this election and the 2020 election here in Alaska.

    • NorthernMegaWood says:

      The ballot paper is thinner to. For what thats worth…

      • NorthernMegaWood says:

        YEP, The fix is in, ya Think???

      • NorthernMegaWood says:

        I spoke with a woman at one of the two precincts at the North Pole Plaza about the felt tip pens and she said she questioned the board about the pens also. All the while there was another woman sitting there giving me the evil eye for questioning them about the pens…The election board is corrupt. As we all should know by now.

      • Aaron Blumenthal says:

        Yep, I was standing in line at Costco and heard one guy telling another one that his friend saw a woman in Ester pushing a dozen of ballots into machine.

    • Amy Hensley says:

      Yes, full forensic audits need to happen everywhere!! The machines are bad news!

    • Leslie Smallwood says:

      Please call the Lt. Governors Office today and complain about the pens used in yesterday’s Election. Black ink felt pens were distributed to all voters to use, not the BLACK OR BULE pen required on the Ballot. The machine used was a new Dominion Voting Systems.
      If you don’t speak up, you will never be heard.
      Office of the Lt. Governor
      P.O. Box 110015
      Juneau, AK 99811-0001

      JUNEAU OFFICE ANCHORAGE OFFICE
      Alaska State Capitol
      120 4th Street, 3rd Floor
      Juneau, AK 99801 550 West 7th Avenue,
      Suite 1700
      Anchorage, AK 99501
      Phone (907) 465-3520 Phone (907) 269-7460
      State Info (907) 465-2111
      TTY/TDD (Relay Alaska): 711 or 800-770-8973

    • Lobo says:

      “New Machines”, aye ?? Gotta have the more up to date theft programmed machines.. Internet connected technology too.

    • Evan S Singh says:

      Surely there is something more important to complain about.

    • Fred Lee says:

      Make sure you check those ballots for bamboo fibers, amirite?

      The real mystery is why the radical right continues to push debunked election conspiracy theories. These wingnuts need to get their noses out of OANN and Facebook, and return to reality.

      • Kfinh says:

        And tell me we’re does one find credible news from? ADN, Alaska News source, NPR, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, NYT? I’m only asking because I would like to return to reality now.

      • Fred Lee says:

        I applaud your eagerness!

        There are numerous meta-analyses of news-sources that you can reference. I enjoy the Wall Street Journal, but to respond to your concern, some of the sources you reference are at least more “in the center” than the OANN, or whatever Uncle Bert forwards on Facebook.

        The important thing is that you avoid the trap that so many have fallen into, in which they allow a single demagogue to convince them that everyone who opposes him is a radical socialist. Even when he acknowledges that this is his strategy, a certain segment of the population is oblivious.

        You can be better!

  • Natalia Offsgrow says:

    My children will never go back to the public school system in this town. Sad to see only 23% of Registered voters got out to vote. This will be detrimental to our quality of life and safety. These leftists are delusional.

    • Mike Moore says:

      These elections are not a reflection of the people in the borough. Unfortunately, the conservatives thought it was a no brainier and didn’t bother to vote. These people will have no credibility when they are unhappy with the results. Like I told my son when we went into vote. You have no right to complain about things if you don’t vote!

      Now we have an snowflake attorney on the assembly, could it get a worse?

      The dominion machines need to go! If we are ever to come even close to fair elections, we’ll need voter ID, and hand counted ballots with observers.

    • Sean P. Ryan says:

      The 23% figure is mistaken. The initial report by the borough clerk created that figure by combining the total of all ballots. In other words, city voters were counted twice. The actual turnout was 18% in the borough and 14% in the cities. Their dashboard is worse than useless, so I only skimmed a few data points. Most pertinent is that turnout ranged from 11-15% on Badger Road, versus 33% in Ester. If you want to make a change, educate the people who are too deep into their Faux News / OANN fantasy world and have been brainwashed into believing the presidency is the only office that matters.

    • Sean P. Ryan says:

      Speaking of turnout, you really can’t take those numbers at face value. If someone leaves Alaska, registers to vote in another place and that jurisdiction lacks a mechanism for requesting that Alaska cancel the previous registration, that person will still be registered to vote in Alaska. It is up to the person to perform due diligence. The move towards vote by mail did have an upside, in that it exposed this practice when it became known that Anchorage sent a bunch of ballots to people who no longer lived in Anchorage and were voting elsewhere. The Division of Elections changed the practice by which they prune their voter rolls many years ago, not long after the Motor Voter Act became law. I should point out that the disparity in turnout percentages between different parts of the borough remains unchanged by what I’ve explained.

  • Jon and Ruth Ewig says:

    If we lost here in Fairbanks, it is definitely a fix but who in power is listening? If it is rigged it is a waste of time and energy until someone steps up who has power. Our grandchildren are not in public school.

    • Fred Lee says:

      Maybe if the conservatives who claim to care about election results actually showed up to vote, the results would have been different.

  • Neil A DeWitt says:

    Has anyone that used a felt tipped pen ever turned over the ballot after marking it to see if the bleed through aliens with the Democrat name on the other side? Just a thought on how our dominion voting machine is actually working. I say let’s go back to hanging Chad’s. At least there wasn’t a question of which candidate you picked.

    • Fred Lee says:

      Former President Trump’s own favorite election auditing committee, the Trump supporting “Cyber Ninjas” performed a full audit of Maricopa County ballots. Even they found that felt-tip pens did not impact the results.

    • Cindy says:

      The FNSB ballot was one-sided.

  • Billy MegaWood says:

    We have less than a million peeps in our state, WE DO NOT NEED CORRUPT DOMINION MACHINES TO COUNT OUR ELECTIONS. Those machines are here to steel our ELECTIONS!

  • Aaron Blumenthal says:

    100% fixed. I don’t think we have so many libtards in FNSB. All fixed!

  • josh church says:

    As much as its easy to say the election was rigged, and no doubt we need major reform and voter ID. The liberals ran adds pretending to be conservatives, they ran adds in books together, they had more signs up, they had more people holding signs around town, and lefts college kids have been educated to be activist for 20 years now. They will get out on these low voter turn out elections and win. We lost this race because they worked harder than we did at all levels and they have prepped their people to be out every election. Conservatives go about their lives, get riled up every now and again and turn out, then they go to sleep. Same as the tea party, where are they now? Spending is worse than ever. THis is a problem with conservatives.

    • Aaron Blumenthal says:

      All because we work hard, and have no time for all that. Liberals use our tax money to pay those with signs. I am 100% sure they ain’t volunteers.

  • Proud Alaskan says:

    Keep up the fight Fairbanks, don’t be discouraged. Keep going to theses meetings stand up and be heard.

    • Aaron Blumenthal says:

      We should prey harder to our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Mighty Lord, save us and the world from all the liberal satanists. Amen!

  • Aaron Blumenthal says:

    Now they will try to push mask mandate to our kids. We should get together and fight back. COVID is a hoax! I had a vision last month, and the Angel told me that mask is the same as mark of the beast. Dear Lord protect us from it! Amen!

    • Jen says:

      No one pay attention to what “Aaron Blumenthal” says. The true christian is not hateful as this man represents. The bible does not say God hate His creation. God hates sin. God loved us despite our choices we made. God is holy and can’t look upon us in our sin. That is why we need Jesus Romans 10:9-10 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess (-your sin) and are saved.”

      • Evan S Singh says:

        Jen. Why did God allow leftists to win so many elections?

      • Aaron Blumenthal says:

        Exactly! God gave us power to fight sin, not to be tolerant with it. Because of a christian liberals we have churches welcoming sodomites. We even have them in Fairbanks. Sin is so deep today in our everyday life. Satan is building temples and calling them churches. And only blind ones cannot see this.

      • Evan S Singh says:

        Easy now. You’ll cause poor Jen to fall to her knees in weeping prayer.

  • Joseph says:

    June Rogers … a leftist … ROFLMAO. The reason the rightwingers lost is they aligned themselves with Patricia Silva, a crazy Qanon supporter.

    • Fred Lee says:

      Amen. When you go to bed with crazy, you wake up next to crazy. The GOP has been having an orgy of crazy for the last 4 years. It is no wonder that the the remaining moral members of the party are fleeing its candidates and, indeed, the party itself.

      We desperately need the GOP to regain its bearings so we can return to multiple competent parties in this country. This election cycle clearly isn’t the one where that happens.

      • Aaron Blumenthal says:

        What’s wrong with last 4 years? We had the best economy ever during Trump presidency. And it was destroyed overnight by the election fraud.

      • Fred Lee says:

        By what measure did we have “the best economy ever”? GDP growth was better under Obama. Stock market growth was better under Obama. Annual job gains were better under Obama. Consumer confidence increased more under Obama. The trade deficit was lower under Obama.

        There are some factors in which the Trump economy “trumped” Obama’s. Real wage growth was moderately higher. I’m no Obama fan; I mention the above only to prove that we DID NOT have “the best economy ever” under Trump. Facts are facts, and numbers are numbers. The strength of the economy is quantifiable, so fortunately rather than parroting a known liar, cheat, and shyster you can do your own research.

  • Jon and Ruth Ewig says:

    The atheists and pantheists also atheists are in control here in the Interior. The UAF leaders dominate and train their students to always vote. These atheists and pantheists control the News Miner throughout especially with Dermot Cole’s column, and previously his twin brother Terrence writing in the Community Perspective and the Librarian Greg Hill having a column and as an example “ganging up” on former legislator Dick Randolph. We notice that Dermot is now a medical expert whose column is being printed in an Anchorage newspaper with his so-called “expertise”.

    Even though there are a majority of Christians here in the Interior, they are less engaged and the ministers do not emphasize the importance of our civic duty as Christians to go out and vote. Hard working individuals come home tired and then do not make the effort to drive to the polling place for a borough and school board election. The UAF has a polling place right on campus at Wood Center. No driving and less effort involved. There are many reasons why the atheists have the upper hand. Deception is also one of their values and they are practiced at it. Many Christians do not even know what the issues are or why they should get involved in the culture. Lance said he will have a report and analysis on Friday the 15th that we can hear. He is a number cruncher so we look forward to his evaluation of this election..

    • Aaron Blumenthal says:

      Amen to that! Yes, we have to work very hard, because our good parents didn’t send us to college, and now we are the ones who have to do real work to support the country. This is what Jesus would do instead of going to the university to learn how to use loopholes in order to steal from working christians. That’s what college is about today. This is why my kids would never go to one of this houses of satan worshipers.

  • Maude Lebowski says:

    So when your candidate losses, you call fraud. This game is getting old fast. How about loss gracefully, that is what Jesus would do.

  • Jon and Ruth Ewig says:

    Many Christian families have solved the problem of education by pulling out of the government schools into homeschool and Christian School. There are more Christian schools here now. Then they may have dismissed the problems in the public schools in their own minds. That is fortunate for those children but not for those still enrolled in the toxic public schools and the UAF.

  • LadyAlaya says:

    It seems odd to me that that the conservative Bryce Ward won by 10,000 votes, but all the other conservatives lost by by a much narrower margin. Why would leftist vote for a conservative mayor? Why would conservatives vote for leftist assembly members and school board members after voting for a conservative mayor? This seems inconsistent as the values and ideas of conservatives and leftists are widely divergent on almost every issue in this current political climate. Very strange.

    • Sean P. Ryan says:

      Because sometimes, the “you’re either with me or against me” stance evident in so many of these comments simply lacks a basis in reality. If you have no memory beyond this election cycle, Bryce Ward spent much of his six years as mayor of North Pole building positive relationships throughout the community. He enjoyed the same broad-based support when first elected in 2018.