There’s a week left before Kenai Peninsula voters head to the polls to cast ballots for new state lawmakers, U.S. president and vice president, on ballot measures and more. This week, KDLL is bringing you a series of stories spotlighting local races as we enter the home stretch of election season, featuring highlights from our 2024 candidate forum series.
It’s a battle of Republican ideologies in the race for the seat in the Alaska Senate that covers the northern half of the Kenai Peninsula. Senate District D covers communities north of Tustumena Lake, including Nikiski, Sterling, Hope, Bear Creek and Cooper Landing among others.
The two frontrunners are incumbent Jesse Bjorkman and challenger Ben Carpenter. Both are Republicans from Nikiski.
Bjorkman was elected to the State Senate in 2022. When not in Juneau, he’s a social studies teacher at Nikiski Middle/High School and a commercial driftnet fisherman.
“My name is Jesse Bjorkman, and I'm proud to represent you in the Alaska State Senate,” he said. “I'm a dad and husband, a person who loves this community, and I love to talk to the people in it and learn about the state issues that matter to them.”
Bjorkman chairs the Senate’s Labor and Commerce Committee and is a member of nine other committees and task forces. He also sits on the Senate Education, State Affairs and Community and Regional Affairs committees.
Carpenter was elected to the State House in 2018. He’s a U.S. Air Force veteran and peony farmer.
“My name is Ben Carpenter. I'm running for the State Senate,” he said. “I've served six years in the State House, representing the northern Kenai Peninsula in District 8. I’ve been married for 39 years, and I have four children, three grandchildren.”
Carpenter chairs the House Ways and Means and the House Legislative Budget and Audit committees. He’s also a member of nine other committees.
Education and education funding
Despite sharing a party affiliation, the two candidates have some key differences. For one, Bjorkman and Carpenter disagree about the best way to financially support K-12 schools.
Last session, they diverged on a piece of legislation that would have increased the base amount of money school districts receive per student, the base student allocation or BSA.
Initially, they both voted in favor of the bill, which would have also bumped state funding for home-school students and created a statewide charter school coordinator position. After Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the bill, Bjorkman voted to override and Carpenter voted to sustain. Lawmakers came up one vote short of the threshold needed to override.
Carpenter says he will support more funding for Alaska’s K-12 schools when the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District looks more critically at why so many families on the peninsula choose to home-school their families rather than send them to district schools. It’s estimated that more than 1,440 Kenai Peninsula students attend a home-school program not run by the district.
“The problem that we have with education cannot just be pinned on state dollars, saying just pay more,” he said. “We also have to address the issue where parents are choosing to leave the school district for particular reasons, that is the root cause of the problem.”
Bjorkman supports increasing the BSA. He says stable funding for districts will let them spend more wisely and said one-time funding is wasteful. He says families are leaving the district in part due to programs that have been cut because of insufficient funding.
“The most wasteful way that we can spend state dollars on education is what has been happening these last years, since 2017 with one-time money,” he said. “Because one-time money gets spent on one-time stuff. When we have stable, strategic funding for education, we can do more to bring kids back to school.”
Economy
The candidates also differ on their approach to the state’s finances. Carpenter supports a multi-pronged approach to stabilizing the state budget and the Permanent Fund dividend. He favors a state spending cap, enshrining Alaskans’ right to a PFD in the state Constitution and a 2% statewide sales tax.
“Our families in this state would be better off if we would address our fiscal plan and our fiscal situation by controlling our spending, paying a 50/50 dividend and instituting a 2% statewide sales tax,” he said.
Bjorkman also supports a state spending cap, but disagrees with Carpenter’s tax proposal. He supports work and volunteer requirements for residents who receive state aid and said the state needs to make more investments in education, public safety and road maintenance.
“Our state needs to be a much more, much more unwelcoming place for people who don't want to be productive and can be,” he said. “We need to have encouragements for folks to get out and work. And when we don't do that, we suffer.”
Energy
When it comes to reducing the price of energy, Bjorkman and Carpenter are generally in alignment. Both Bjorkman and Carpenter support building a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Nikiski as a way to address resource shortfalls in Cook Inlet.
Carpenter blames Democrats for the failure of a bill last session that would have lowered royalty rates for Cook Inlet gas developers, with the goal of spurring new activity in the basin. He says government intervention is what bogs down development, and that Alaskans should expect to pay more for energy in the short-term regardless if it comes from Alaska or abroad.
“That has been a regulatory – a government-induced problem that we have had,” he said. “So one of the things that we need to do is get government out of the way so producers can go out and find gas. That's what we need to do, ultimately, for a long term policy.”
Bjorkman supports lowering royalty rates for developers and says Alaska needs an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy. That may include legislation aimed at spurring new development in the Cook Inlet basin, liquefied natural gas imports and renewable energy projects. He says high energy prices are stifling the state economy and disagrees that higher energy prices are the future for ratepayers.
“We need to have an all in approach to energy, or we are going to face energy costs that are staggeringly high, and we will be at the whim of others when it comes to providing us base load fuel like natural gas,” he said.
Campaign fundraising
Bjorkman has significantly outraised Carpenter. Since kicking off his campaign, Bjorkman’s raised more than $151,000, including about $3,800 in non-monetary contributions. Carpenter has raised roughly half that much, roughly $84,000. Of that, about $5,000 is from non-monetary contributions.
Political action committees have contributed the largest share to Bjorkman’s campaign — more than $41,000.
Campaign finance data [WEB: from the Alaska Public Offices Commission] show Bjorkman’s received $36,000 from PACs. That includes the National Education Association, multiple labor unions – including Teamsters ALIVE, the AFL-CIO and IBEW, the Alaska Realtors PAC and the Alaska Professional Firefighters, among others.
Unlike Carpenter, Bjorkman was one of a handful of Republicans who supported a bill that would restore a pension system for state workers during the last session of the Legislature. As reported by the Anchorage Daily News, that’s been a key driver of political spending this cycle.
More than a third of Carpenter’s donations – just over $23,000 – have come from retirees. Homemakers also chipped in almost $6,000, followed by political organizations, which gave him more than $4,000. Republican groups from House districts 7 and 8 each gave Carpenter $500.
Early voting
Early voting is already underway. On the central peninsula, voters can cast ballots at the Alaska Division of Elections office in Kenai and at Soldotna Prep School. Both locations have ballots for House Districts 5-8 and 37.
The Kenai location is at 11312 Kenai Spur Rd., Ste. 48. It’s open Monday through Friday until Nov. 4 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. It’s also open Saturday, Nov. 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 3 from 12 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The Soldotna location is at 426 W. Redoubt Ave. It’s open Monday through Friday until Nov. 4 from 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.