With more than 99 percent of the vote counted in the Anchorage municipal election early Wednesday morning, Ethan Berkowitz held a commanding lead with nearly 37 percent of the vote, but was shy of the 45 percent he would need to avoid a runoff.
Amy Demboski held almost a 3-point lead for the second-place spot and the other runoff position over Andrew Halcro. She had more than 24 percent; he was close to 22 percent. Former two-term Anchorage Assemblyman Dan Coffey, initially the front-runner in the mayor's race, was in fourth place with 14 percent of the vote.
"Feeling strong -- this is a great night," Berkowitz said as he walked out of his campaign party downtown to Election Central at the Dena'ina Convention Center. "My campaign team has been terrific. The numbers suggest there will be a runoff. We'll continue to talk about the goals we have for Anchorage, make sure this continues to be a safe, strong and secure community and make sure we're ready for the opportunities that come our way."
Demboski was also upbeat in a brief interview at Election Central. She described herself as "cautiously optimistic" about the count.
"No matter what happens, I know that we ran a great campaign," Demboski said. "We did everything we could with what we had. And the message that's really resonating is though you may not be the candidate with the most amount of money, if you have a strong message and that message resonates with voters, you absolutely can prevail." Demboski raised the least amount of campaign money of the four leading candidates.
In an email sent shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday, Halcro conceded that he failed to make the runoff.
"I am conceding in the mayor's race to Amy Demboski and Ethan Berkowitz," Halcro said. "This race was close and I am grateful for the strong support I received from voters and volunteers. Losing is always tough, but it's easier if you believe in what you are doing. I feel strongly that my vision for Anchorage resonated with voters and I have great hopes for Anchorage's future."
Halcro didn't say whether he would support Berkowitz or Demboski.
At 11 p.m. Tuesday, election officials said they were still counting nearly 4,000 absentee ballots.
A runoff would be on May 5.
In an interview at Election Central, Mayor Dan Sullivan, who supported Dan Coffey, said he plans to support Demboski in the runoff "100 percent."
For the 69-year-old Coffey, an insider in Anchorage politics for years, experience might have been a disadvantage, Sullivan said. "I just think there was a sense that maybe the voters were looking for a fresh face and some new energy," he said.
Coffey didn't return several messages seeking comment. Earlier in the evening, Coffey described the early tally as "meaningless."
Election officials reported steady turnout at the polls late Tuesday, on top of a week's worth of record-breaking early voting numbers. By Sunday, the city had received 7,283 completed ballots, just shy of the 2009 record of 7,333, according to Deputy Clerk Amanda Moser.
Sharon McCracken, an election official at the Loussac Library precinct where voters from all over the city could cast early ballots, said turnout had been "spectacular" since voting began March 23.
McCracken said the Loussac precinct beat early-voting records on at least two of the days it was open. She said the library counted 446 voters in a single day; never before had officials counted more than 400.
"The city has made a big push to get people to vote early," McCracken said. "Plus it's a mayoral year, so the turnout is better in those years."
Turnout appeared to be down, though, in some traditional precincts. About 5 p.m. at Tudor Elementary School, voting seemed to be lagging. Poll worker Lily Marsh said the precinct had seen closer to 400 people, instead of the usual 600 to 700 for a spring election.
But, Marsh said, the flow has still been steady. "We're not sitting here doing nothing."
Voters head to polls
Travis Erickson, 44, a resident of the U-Med area, said Berkowitz used to be his representative in the state House. He said it's been disappointing each time Berkowitz has run and lost.
"He's a good critical thinker, knows the issues, seems reasonable, without any drama or wackiness, and just generally seems down to earth," Erickson said.
At the Tudor Elementary School precinct, Jeff Bannish, 53, said he's a longtime fan of Halcro's and decided to vote for him. Bannish said Tuesday's election was his first time voting for a Republican in 20 years.
Toni Mansfield, 55, said she didn't decide who she was voting for until she got to the voting booth. She said she was "unimpressed" with all the candidates, but she ended up voting for Berkowitz.
She said she was tempted to vote for Dustin Darden, one of the minor candidates, because she'd seen his homemade signs.
Wearing a gray Alaska Aces sweatshirt, Danette Erskine, 39, said she voted for Coffey, though she said she didn't have a particular reason why. She said she'd heard good and bad about him from her friends.
Another Coffey voter called him "the only real conservative" in the race. He said he didn't know enough about Demboski to vote for her -- but he said he did like the fact that she carries a gun.
Nancy Larson, 70, voted for Demboski. She said she watched several televised debates and thought Demboski performed well.
"She just has no bullsh*t about her," Larson said.
A long campaign
Anchorage's race for mayor was marked by strong personalities, a bit of name-calling, a gaffe involving a lawyer's threatening letter to news media on behalf of a candidate, and a confrontation between a candidate with a handgun at her hip and a suspected sign vandal. Narratives about public safety, homelessness, fiscal policy and management were threaded throughout.
Demboski pitched herself as the conservative firebrand of the race, favoring limited government and less taxation. Halcro highlighted his homegrown business background and vision for resurrecting the city's downtown center. Coffey called himself a knowledgeable former Assembly member with a long track record in city politics. Berkowitz emphasized his background as a prosecutor and state legislator and said the city should pay more attention to budget woes in Juneau.
Other candidates included Lance Ahern, chief information officer for the Municipality of Anchorage; Paul Bauer Jr., former Assembly member; and Darden, a municipal fleet maintenance worker who grabbed attention with his homemade signs and folksy, spelling-challenged, statements.
The race started in October 2013, when former Assembly members Dan Coffey and Paul Bauer Jr. declared their candidacies. In Coffey's case, the early announcement was designed to maximize fundraising capacity, his consultant Marc Hellenthal said at the time. Individuals are limited to $500 donations to a campaign each year.
By Tuesday's election, Coffey reported overall contributions of $386,430, more than double that of his nearest opponent.
Despite the financial incentive to declare early, it wasn't until 10 months later that another major candidate joined the race. In August, Demboski, a first-time Assembly member, announced she was running. Demboski immediately sought to cast herself as the most conservative candidate and kept that strategy throughout the campaign.
Meanwhile, other candidates held back, in part because of speculation that former Mayor Mark Begich would enter the race after he lost re-election to U.S. Senate. In December, a pair of polls conducted by political consultant and strategist Jim Lottsfeldt found that Berkowitz and Halcro had stronger name identifications with voters than Coffey, who served two terms on the Anchorage Assembly. Neither Berkowitz nor Halcro had announced at that point, though both appeared to be positioning themselves as candidates.
In mid-January, Halcro, having just resigned as president of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, announced his run. Halcro, a former Republican member of the Alaska House, said the Lottsfeldt polls showed him he could win the election and that he could wait until late in the race to declare.
As the Feb. 13 filing deadline neared, all of the major candidates were aligned with the Republican side of politics. Then, four days before the deadline, former Democratic state Rep. Berkowitz officially revealed he was running during a live recording of "Bernadette and Berkowitz," the KFQD talk radio show he spent more than a year co-hosting. It was his last show.
Despite his late start, Berkowitz handily made up ground on the fundraising front. In the month leading up to the race, Berkowitz raised about the same amount of money as Coffey, Demboski and Halcro combined. He vaulted into second place behind Coffey in the money contest.
Berkowitz also spent the least amount of money, $78,887, according to the latest campaign disclosure reports available. Heading into the final week of the campaign, Coffey had spent about four times as much as any of the other leading candidates, $325,940.
With Berkowitz widely regarded as the front-runner, and a runoff anticipated, his opponents pecked away at each other. Demboski and Halcro frequently brought up ethics, trust and special interests in the campaign, indirect attacks on Coffey.
During a forum, Halcro referred to Coffey, though not by name, as "the most unethical candidate to run for mayor in the history of this city." A campaign mailer from Demboski accused Coffey of paying for Assembly member votes, which Coffey has denied.
In the final week, a radio ad from Coffey accused Demboski and Halcro of "mudslinging and demonizing."
It might be said that Coffey ran the election's most negative campaign -- against himself. A few months after announcing his bid, Coffey released a set of files offering his own perspectives on aspects of his career that he thought could be problematic during the campaign.
As it turned out, one was: His lawyer Thomas Amodio sent a threatening letter to news media about two weeks before the election, demanding that stations not rebroadcast a private 2008 conversation between Coffey and Assembly member Bill Starr in which they discussed punishing and rewarding other politicians. The letter caused a small furor and drew the content of the recording back into the spotlight; Coffey spent almost the entirety of an opening statement at a mayoral forum trying to deflect backlash.
Heading into the final weekend, a spate of vandalism to Demboski campaign signs grabbed headlines. But the twist came Friday evening, when Demboski, a handgun strapped to her hip, personally confronted a suspected vandal in a parking lot in an East Fireweed Lane parking lot.
Reporter Jeannette Lee Falsey contributed to this report.