Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is laying out how he would govern even as Alaska’s governor’s race remains unresolved, saying this week that he is preparing a transition plan and policy priorities if his lead holds. The Democrat and is ahead of three Republican candidates, but the final count is still not finished.
By Thursday night, Kreiss-Tomkins had just over 50% of first-choice votes in the ranked choice election, and his campaign says the remaining ballots should carry him past a majority. His own projection puts him at 51% or 52% once the outstanding ballots are counted. He made the case on Wednesday at the Resource Development Council annual conference in Anchorage, where he said, “We want to be an administration for all Alaskans.”
That is why his post-election planning is getting attention now. Additional ballot counts are expected on Friday and Wednesday, results are set to be certified by Nov. 25, and the new governor is scheduled to be sworn in on Dec. 7, a compressed runway for any incoming administration. Alaska’s executive branch transition period is among the fastest in the country, which leaves little time to build a team once the count is final.
Kreiss-Tomkins said his transition would be overseen by three co-chairs: a Republican, a Democrat and an independent. He said those co-chairs would guide policy teams working across different policy areas and verticals, though he did not list them one by one. The structure is meant to produce an administration that is blended in political background and affiliation, and he said he may keep some members of the current Republican governor’s administration while moving in other directions elsewhere.
That may sound like a standard transition pitch, but the race has not been called by national outlets and Bernadette Wilson has not conceded. Kreiss-Tomkins said he expects to end up with the majority, yet the count is still live and the final margin depends on ballots that have not been tabulated. He also said he wants to focus on making government work and to cultivate a culture of constant improvement in state government, pointing to delays at the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities in adopting a federally required long-term plan and the longstanding backlog in processing applications for food assistance and other safety net programs.
The coming days will show whether his internal projection matches the certified result. If it does, Kreiss-Tomkins will have only 12 days between certification and inauguration to turn a blended transition team into a governing operation, and the first test will be whether that broad coalition can move faster than the state machinery he says it needs to improve.
