Kreiss-Tomkins upsets Alaska, first Democratic governor since 1998

Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins wins Alaska in a landslide and becomes the state's first Democratic governor since 1998 and the youngest in office at 37. Meanwhile, in the Senate race, his party colleague Mary Peltola consolidates her lead over outgoing Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. More than 10 days after the midterm vote, with the count past 95%, Kreiss-Tomkins won by a wide margin, according to projections by NBC News and other American outlets, reinforcing the blue tsunami of the midterm elections that swept away President Donald Trump's Republicans. Already a state representative in Alaska, Kreiss-Tomkins defeated three Republican candidates, including one backed by the tycoon: with the count past 95%, the governor-elect came in at 50.8% (with 139,293 votes) against 28.1% (77,110 votes) for his main rival Bernadette Wilson, the Trump-backed Republican. His victory brings the number of governorships held by the Democrats to 30: during the campaign, Kreiss-Tomkins focused on reducing the cost of living, fully funding public schools, and stricter, more clearly defined regulation of data center construction serving artificial intelligence, an issue that has divided America. These positions won the support of Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of the few figures in the Grand Old Party to step forward and openly distance herself from Trump on some domestic and foreign policy issues. Kreiss-Tomkins's win is a blow to the Trump administration's ambitions to ramp up natural resource extraction activities in the state, involving oil and gas. As for the Senate race, the only one still to be decided for the final composition of the US Senate (currently 55 to 44 in favor of the Donkey party), Democrat Mary Peltola has consolidated her lead over her Republican rival, outgoing Senator Dan Sullivan: with the count past 95%, the former congresswoman leads with 138,240 votes (49.8%) against Sullivan's 46.1%, totaling 127,828 votes. Which, added to the 4,560 votes of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr, the 'stalking horse' candidate accused by Trump of having been put forward by the Democrats to rig the race, still fall short of Peltola's total. Legal fallout is therefore not ruled out once a winner emerges at the end of the complex electoral system. Finally, Alaska's voters rejected the latest attempt to repeal the state's system of open primaries and ranked choice voting, which Trump has harshly criticized. The measure, put to a vote during the November 3 midterms, marked the second time in two years that voters have rejected attempts to overturn the system and return to party primaries and general elections in which voters may choose only one candidate. The proposal would also have eliminated some rules on campaign finance transparency, another controversial aspect. All rights reserved © Copyright ANSA