If nothing changes and the polling is correct, the Democrat candidate will win the Alaska governor’s race. It could lead to disaster. With a Democrat governor, our State Legislature will pass every loony left-wing bill they can think up, and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (JKT) will rubber-stamp every one of them. The next four years will go badly for citizens of this state, but the unanswered question is who will get the blame.
If this election ends with Alaska having a Democrat governor, it would be easy to blame Ranked Choice Voting. Ironically, we could have another unfair RCV election result in the same election where RCV is repealed. Now that would be hard to take.
The Republicans will try to avoid accountability and by citing RCV as the culprit, but some of the candidates in this year’s election will also deserve some of the blame.
One person who won’t be blamed is Bernadette Wilson. Wilson played by the rules. She won the primary and should be the lone Republican running in the general election. To Wilson’s credit, she did say before the election that she would drop out if she weren’t the Republican vote leader, and since winning has tried to hold candidates Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor to that same standard – asking them to drop out. If JKT wins, Wilson will merit the least amount of criticism. If she loses, you could see Wilson on a statewide election ballot at some point in the future.
Not so with Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor. They are in the process of destroying their political careers. They are both experienced politicians who should have known from Mary Peltola’s 2022 election victory that by remaining in the race, they were sabotaging Wilson. Instead of acting statesmanlike, they selfishly remained in the race hoping for a miracle. While some sort of October surprise might yet catapult one of them to victory, the truth is that no poll has ever shown either of them with any chance of winning. All they can do at this point is guarantee a Democrat victory in November. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is probably giddy that Bronson and Taylor are still running.
Another group that will deserve its portion of the blame is the Alaska Republican Party. They have done nothing to police their members. If JKT wins, yes, RCV enabled it, but the AKGOP has done nothing to prevent it from happening. A strong political party would have encouraged two of the candidates to drop out of the governor’s race and endorsed the GOP candidate who earned the most votes in the primary election.
There is a lesson in this about how voters view the AKGOP. Alaska has a conservative population, but there are more registered nonpartisan voters than Republicans. The voters know the AKGOP is an unreliable partner in delivering conservative governance. Why should they support a party that consistently gives us weak RINO candidates like Lisa Murkowski, Louise Stutes, and Gary Stevens?
The AKGOP deserves some of the blame for the imminent train wreck ahead of us and might want to look at what is happening to a weak conservative party in Great Britain. The British Conservative Party is the oldest political party in the world, but is now largely irrelevant, replaced by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. The Tory party failed the voters, and they looked for other alternatives to represent them. The Alaska GOP could experience the same fate.
If you believe the polls, a Democrat will win the governor’s race, meaning the train wreck that will follow is inevitable. The ones that will receive most of the blame have the most to lose. I am specifically referring to the candidates Bronson and Taylor, along with the AKGOP. If they do nothing and JKT is elected, the voters will blame them. However, it isn’t too late to act. Bronson and Taylor could become the October surprise. As suggested in a previous post, they should both drop out to support Bernadette Wilson. The AKGOP leadership should work to make that happen. Either they demonstrate leadership now, or they will be held accountable.
The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.
22 Comments
If Republicans in Alaska, and everywhere else, do poorly in the midterms, the only person to blame is the current occupant of the White House. The people I know who voted for Trump in 2024 say they wanted him to secure the border wiith Mexico and lower inflation. And to his credit, the border has been sercure. Everything else has been bluster and self-glorification. Optics matter, and Trump’s optics have been horrible. Renaming international bodies of water, hanging giant banners with his scowling face on government buildings in DC, bulding monuments to his implacable vanity, threatening to annex Canada and Greenland, putting his name and face on buildings, coins, passplorts, paper currenccy, etc. And now banning well-established news networks from the White House just because he doesn’t like their reporting. Everyone but the most fiercely devoted MAGA cultists hates this. The GOP might do bettter if Trump would dial it down a few notches, but he’s become too utterly demented to realize that. And that’s not even considering his war against Iran and inflation.
Blame Trump world. BTW is the excuse, while the system the liberals and deep state politicians continues to profit oligarchs on the backs of future generations.
Try educating yourselves and participating; at least at the level of recreational hiking or fishing.
Hiking is a big part of my life, but I’m not much of a fisherman.
That well established news source didn’t give one second of coverage of the “MUSLIM ” hijacking this week as it was happening, credit fox and a few others but not CNN or msdnc
OMG. Already looking for people to blame.
Wilson will likely lose, however I think she would have a fighting chance if she stopped talking about how great Trump is.
She’s doing everything she can to get his endorsement – mimicking his campaign tactics and brown-nosing.
Yeeeah, it’s interesting. I do think that if the GOP were organized and stronger, we wouldn’t have had so many going into the primary to begin with. I also think that Wilson never would have run but for an open primary. It provided an opportunity for her to appeal to the voting populace outside Anchorage, presenting a whitewashed image of herself that doesn’t line up with what we’ve seen, watching her in the public square for years. I can’t wait to get this over with so I can stop holding my nose.
Bernadette Wilson will be my choice when casting my vote for Governor. Bronson and Taylor will never see an iota of support from me regardless of the outcome of this election. Two men with too much pride and arrogance to do the right thing. If the Republican party would grow a pair and tell these two men to support the number one in the primary it would go a long way in rehabilitating the good ole boy system that plagues the party. But the Republican leadership has been neutered and behaving like nothing is their fault.
You’re going to rank the other two at least yes?
Steve, what of the others who would’ve moved into 3rd and 4th place if B and T had dropped out in time? We’d still have 4 on the ballot unless every single one agreed to drop out at the same time, which was highly unlikely.
The Republican Party utterly failed to congeal before the primary, when they knew it was their only chance to get one Republican candidate on the ballot. It’s not like they were unaware that RCV was the name of the game. They just couldn’t figure out how to play it until it was too late.
If Bronson and Taylor stepped down their names will still be on the ballot. If they both stepped down earlier, then other republicans and other non-republicans would just move up to the third and fourth places.
Wilson was third overall but yes first over the republicans. The biggest thing now is to vote YES on prop #2 to end this cheating system we have now. I will be ranking all the red candidates.
Wilson is an actor. At least Bronson and Taylor have met their question and answer sessions and debates head-on. Where has Wilson been?
Out in the communities talking to the voters face to face. Where have you been?
Steve, I am well aware of Wilson’s meet and greets. Doing these in person is good, but I wanted to see her consistency in answering questions in comparisons to other candidates online and in front of the camera where the whole state is watching. I have not seen consistency in these areas. I think that they are important. It makes me wonder if she would be doing a lot of closed door meetings and decision-making behind closed doors.
Agree Janice, I have been saying that from the beginning. Any candidates who can’t or won’t answer the questions, didn’t get my vote. Plus there were multiple times the Watchman asked questions of these candidates. So ok you missed one, but all of them, you’re just hiding something. Ranking Wilson #3, PS I wish that Mike Shower was running as Governor not lieutenant governor
Primaries are for hope. General elections are for pragmatism.
Rank the red is what one must do in order to keep Flames JKT out of the governor’s mansion.
AND vote YES on 2.
I made my last financial contribution to AK Republican Party over 15 years ago. It’s been fun watching how inept AKGOP is in controlling their candidates. AKDEMs have no problem telling a loser to get off the ballot. They did it in 2014 and gave us one of the dumbest people in the state as Governor. They’re doing it in 2026, and AK will have one of the most communist governors in the union! What fun to watch! And yes, the blame will rest squarely on the AKGOP.
We will see what God allows in Nov. if God allows a complete Democrat control over Alaska’s three branches then blaming Bronson and Taylor will do nothing in moving the AKGOP forward. I’d rather see those two men go get involved on their Anchorage neighborhood councils because we need more Men of valor overseeing their neighborhood councils. I doubt Bronson and Taylor will go to their councils but it’ll be far better to see them as council members than isolated.
If God allows JKT to become Alaska’s next Governor then maybe God has bigger plans for us than maintaining our comfort.
A few times back in frustration I prayed to God telling him “Alaskans are never going to come to you as long as they have their comfort, if removing our comfort and making us uncomfortable more Souls can be saved then do what you must do to save as many souls as possible” I prayed in frustration because of continual rejection especially from so called Christians and thinking they don’t take God’s Word seriously or the fellowship with one another seriously.
But. Don’t blame anyone blame and shame won’t move us forward.
I been trying to get more neighbors on the right to especially the men to start attending their neighborhood councils since 2021, to learning about the muni, and get a seat as a council member where their voice can be heard.
With that don’t forget to rank in the PRIMARY ORDER: Wilson 1, Bronson 2, Taylor 3. And do not rank JKT
This is a feeble argument on 2 levels. First, polls have become propaganda devices and anyone who proves them are part of the problem. Second, and more important is the fact that if Bernadette was the only name on the ballot on the conservative side, myself and a substantial amound of voters would not vote in the governors race. Bernadette holds none of my values. she is far from “conservative.” Her court view records are proof that she is far from being financially responsible and conservative. She will get my vote in the RCV scheme, but that is the only way.
The Republicans are losing because of Trump. He’s running the country into the ground while he rakes in the dough. Many Republican candidates are taking him off their websites. Republicans have voted with him 88% of the time. If Republican candidates want to get better then get out of the Trump cult and save the country.
Mr. Sarber, If Bronson and Taylor do not step down, or if by some miracle they do but their names remain on the ballot, isn’t it of Primary Importance either way To RANK in the PRIMARY ORDER? Wilson 1, Bronson 2, Taylor 3.
The reality is as Mr. Sarber stated. We will have a marxist Governor because two narcissists, who know better, refuse to drop out. If you don’t believe this your are not living in reality. They are all frauds, sociopaths, and narcissists. None of them represent you. I am not a prophet but I am not wrong. We will have a marxist governor.