Donald Trump and Nick Begich were the candidates of choice for central Kenai Peninsula voters this election. That’s per preliminary results from the Alaska Division of Elections.
Of the ballots counted so far, central Kenai Peninsula voters overwhelmingly prefer Trump to Democratic challenger Kamala Harris. Peninsula voters also support repealing Alaska’s open primary and ranked choice election systems.
And they soundly defeated the ballot measure aimed at expanding worker rights in Alaska. The proposition would have increased Alaska’s minimum wage, mandated sick time for workers and prohibited employers from requiring worker attendance at political or religious meetings.
Statewide, the vote on ranked choice voting is tighter. There’s currently only a two percentage point difference between yes and no votes on the proposition. So far, 50.8% of votes are in favor of repeal, compared to 49.2% opposed.
And Alaska voters on the whole are supportive of the ballot measure that’d boost the minimum wage and mandate sick leave for employees. So far, about 57% of votes are in favor of those changes.
State House District 7 covers Kenai and Soldotna.
This year, 42.45% of the district’s 17,038 voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s election. Of those voters, a third, or 32.8%, voted early.
More than 70% of District 7 voters voted in favor of Trump and running mate J.D. Vance. Roughly one in four District 7 voters backed Harris and running mate Tim Walz.
The District 7 votes were tighter in Alaska’s U.S. House race. Almost two-thirds of voters – 63.08% – threw their support behind Republican Candidate Nick Begich, while just under a third supported incumbent Democrat Mary Peltola.
The results more heavily favored Republicans in House District 8, which includes the northern Kenai Peninsula excluding Kenai and Soldotna. So think Nikiski, Hope, Sterling, Cooper Landing and Bear Creek.
About three-quarters of voters in that district voted for Trump, compared to 23% for Harris. State data show the district’s voter turnout was almost 50%. More voters in District 8 backed Begich for U.S. House than in District 7. So far, he’s received about 68.2% of votes.
The results continue a trend of growing favorability for Trump in those communities. In what was then House District 29, nearly 70% of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2020. That was up from about 67% in 2016.
The 2016 and 2020 elections predate the most recent round of state redistricting. At the time, Seward voted in the same district as Nikiski, Cooper Landing and Hope.
Not every vote has been counted yet. As reported by Alaska Public Media, the Alaska Division of Elections still needs to sort through almost 20,000 votes, which could change the outcome of some races. Nov. 20 is the latest deadline by which the state will accept absentee ballots, as long as they were postmarked on Election Day.
