Anchorage election results unchanged Thursday, with LaFrance maintaining lead over Bronson

Suzanne LaFrance held her lead over Mayor Dave Bronson in the third round of preliminary results for Anchorage’s mayoral runoff election.

Former Assembly Chair LaFrance had just under 54% of the vote and Bronson had just over 46% in Thursday’s results, with LaFrance ahead by 5,126 votes. Election officials had tallied 11,311 more ballots since Wednesday, for a total of 71,097 ballots counted so far.

Thousands of ballots have not yet been counted. Staff at the city’s election center have so far received and sorted 78,432 ballot packages. They are still working to sort and process all ballots cast by voters on Tuesday, and more ballots are arriving at the election center by mail.

After starting with a 10-point lead on Tuesday, election night, LaFrance’s lead has narrowed, dropping to 8 points Wednesday and dipping slightly further on Thursday.

People associated with the campaigns have said it would be difficult to impossible for Bronson to close the vote gap and defeat LaFrance.

LaFrance so far has not declared victory, but said Wednesday she was feeling “confident and optimistic” about the results.

The Bronson campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s results.

Runoff election results will not be official until certification by the Assembly, which is scheduled for May 31.