Robyn Burke holds major lead in Alaska’s House District 40 race

[Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect new ballot tallies as of Friday, Nov. 8, as well as Chase’s comments.]

With preliminary results from Tuesday’s general election streaming in from northern communities, Democrat Robyn “Niayuq” Burke was on pace to represent House District 40 in the Alaska Legislature.

The seat represents a vast district that includes the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs. It is also one of the seats that Democrats have a chance to flip in an effort to shift control of the Alaska House away from the prior Republican-dominated majority.

With 19 of 20 precincts reporting as of Friday, Burke had 46.9% of the vote, Democrat Saima “Ikrik” Chase had 28.7% and incumbent independent Rep. Thomas “Ikaaq” Baker had 23.6%. Burke, who has received 1,171 votes so far, has a 455-vote lead over Chase.

Burke had said Thursday that results from Atqasuk, where she received 100% of the vote in the primary election, were mailed from the village and still needed to be counted. Absentee votes were also not counted yet.

Still, Burke said she was confident she would maintain her lead and said she felt excited, relieved and ready to get to work.

“I just feel incredibly grateful for the support that I received across the district, but to receive 75% of the vote in Utqiagvik, it just really warmed my heart,” she said. “I have a heart for service, and I’m just so thrilled that I have the opportunity to serve in this way.”

Under Alaska’s ranked choice general election system, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the race would go to ranked choice tabulation, which is scheduled to take place Nov. 20. In that scenario, the last-place candidate would be eliminated from the race, and their supporters’ votes would then be distributed to the candidates those voters ranked as their second choice.

If current trends hold in the House District 40 race, the second-place candidate would need to receive a significant surge of votes during ranked choice tabulation in order to overtake Burke.

Chase said Friday that she understood that Burke had a very large margin over her, but it made her feel better that Burke did not sweep the election, and the ranked choice tabulation was likely.

[Two candidates enter race for House District 40 seat highlighting education needs and public safety]

Baker, who was appointed to the seat by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy last November and who was trailing in preliminary election results, said he was looking forward to seeing the final election results and hoped for the best of luck for all candidates.

“It’s an honor to serve in this position,” Baker said. “Whoever holds the seat has their work cut out for them and has to remember that this is for our people in the District first and foremost.”

Education

Burke, who is the president of the North Slope Borough School District Board of Education, started campaigning for the seat in March after Alaska lawmakers failed to override Gov. Dunleavy’s veto of a bipartisan bill that would have boosted school funding. Increasing funding for education has been one of the biggest priorities for Burke, who was raised by an educator.

“Our children are our most important resource, and by continuing not to fund education, we are putting the future of Alaska at risk,” she said. “We have to do better for all children in Alaska. ... That is a start to a better future for kids.”

Burke said she wants to ensure increasing the Base Student Allocation, funding language immersion programs and incorporating a teacher pension program to support retention of educators, especially those who are locally grown.

“There’s a huge outmigration of people in Alaska, but for us, the Indigenous people of Alaska, we’re not going anywhere,” she said. “This is home.”

Chase said that Burke made little effort to look at issues outside of education.

“To me, she is a one-issue candidate and that is a very important issue ― education, but it is not the only issue that residents of District 40 face on a daily basis.”

Needs across the district

Outside of education, Burke said she wants to support economic growth in her region and rural Alaska overall.

During her campaign, Burke traveled to multiple villages and towns across the district and witnessed differences in living conditions there. In Noatak, she saw that heating oil costs were $17 a gallon. In Noorvik, she said she listened to residents talking about a lack of Village Public Safety Officers and no one to respond to emergencies immediately.

In North Slope villages, the borough, profiting from local resource development projects, supports schools, police and fire departments, search and rescue operations and water and sewer services. In Northwest Arctic Borough villages — and in many other places across the state — these services are provided by the state of Alaska.

“Not only is it the cost of living, not only is it the cost of freight, the limited access that people have, but there are huge differences” between communities in the two boroughs in the district, she said. “I am not from the Kotzebue region or the Northwest Arctic, but it’s not lost on me — the stark difference between our two boroughs ... the needs of the district.

“I’ll do whatever I can to advocate for rural Alaska and highlight the voices and the different stories that I heard from people out there and make sure that their story gets told.”

In turn, Chase, who has extensive experience in public safety, previously said she wants to advocate for a better distribution of troopers and filling the open public safety positions locally. She also had said she wants to better address the housing shortage and promote collaboration between state and local government.

Another area she wants to prioritize is finding solutions to the systemic issues surrounding the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis — by improving the reporting practices for MMIP; providing victim support, which she said should include families; and offering critical incident stress management for responders and families surrounding MMIP.

Chase also said she would like to support Indigenous people taking their names back by working with others to pass legislation that waives all fees when a person is returning to their Indigenous name. Former Rep. Kreiss-Thomkins started the work on this subject and Chase said she would like to see it through.

“To me, this is very important for legislators to support the First People of Alaska and their choice to return to their true name,” Chase said. “We shouldn’t charge them to do that.”

Reflecting on the campaign

Burke said that her campaign benefited from an early start. She was the first of the three candidates to put her name on the ballot and start fundraising and traveling, taking every opportunity to reach constituents. She said visiting various villages allowed her to tour resource development project facilities like Alpine and the Willow pad and to experience the hospitality of residents.

“It’s been a really humbling experience,” she said. “I think the most impactful, really, was just being able to meet people at the doors and talk with them in person and hear about issues that are important to them.”

Participating in the election process and seeing how several precincts in rural Alaska didn’t open during the primary election, Burke said she became more aware of the need to hold state departments — including the Division of Elections — accountable.

“We absolutely need an election reform bill. We need to address the disenfranchisement of people, the ballots being tossed out, and make voting more accessible,” she said. “There are different ways to support rural Alaska, and I’m ready to get to work.”

Burke has raised about $80,000 for her campaign with some funding from Anchorage Democrats, while Baker raised over $11,000 and Chase around $9,000, according to campaign disclosure forms.

Chase acknowledged that she was the least funded candidate in the race and said that her funding mostly came out of rural Alaska or individuals who have ties in rural Alaska.

“The amount of funds raised for Robyn’s campaign alarmed me, that is enough for a salary for someone to live comfortably in our district,” Chase said. “That should have never had to happen in order for someone to win an election.”

Burke said she received criticism about some of the funds she received throughout her campaign. She said that heightened attention to the District 40 race was because it was one of the opportunities for Democrats to pick up a seat.

[Alaska House quickly announced a bipartisan majority, but some lawmakers say that was premature]

“House District 40 in this is an incredibly important seat,” she said. Because of several wins for Democrats, “we were able to form a bipartisan coalition so that we can really focus on things that are important to Alaska ... making sure that we’re supporting working Alaskans and families and developing strong economic growth.”