Latest Anchorage election results leave mayor’s race unchanged, but 2 school board races are increasingly close

Election worker Karen Ingraham gathers ballot envelopes from inside a secure drop box at the Eagle River Town Center that were taken to the MOA Election Center during the regular municipal election on Tuesday, April 6, 2021. (Bill Roth / ADN)

Updated results posted Monday showed Dave Bronson keeping his lead over Forrest Dunbar in the election for Anchorage mayor, with the two headed for a runoff on May 11.

The new results, with close to 67,000 ballots now counted, didn’t change leaders in any of the four Anchorage School Board races. However, Kelly Lessens’ lead over Judy Eledge is shrinking in the race for school board seat B, and Pat Higgins’ lead over Sami Graham for seat E has also gotten smaller as more ballots have been counted.

The effort to recall Assembly Chair Felix Rivera is still failing by a significant margin.

About 6,700 additional ballots were counted on Monday, bringing the total to 66,954. Bronson had 33.05% of the vote, with Dunbar at 31.17% in the 15-candidate, nonpartisan race.

Though the race is technically nonpartisan, Bronson’s candidacy is a bid to bring conservative leadership to Anchorage. Dunbar, an Assembly member from East Anchorage, says he’s campaigning for mayor on “fact-based leadership.”

Neither candidate stands to garner the 45% plus one of the vote to win the election outright, forcing the runoff.

Like the April 6 election, the runoff will use mail-in balloting, though in-person voting will also be available at a limited number of locations.

Monday’s results show that District 4 voters are still rejecting an initiative to recall Assembly chair Felix Rivera. So far, about 57% have voted against the initiative.

The leaders of the school board races remained the same: Higgins leads for seat E, Lessens for seat B, Dora Wilson for seat F and Carl Jacobs for seat G.

Lessens maintained a narrow lead over Eledge, with 22,514 votes to Eledge’s 22,422. In the Seat E, Higgins was leading Sami Graham, 19,094 to 18,720. In the Seat G race, Jacobs leads incumbent Elisa Vakalis 28,386 to 27,087, or 51% to 49%.

Two of the city’s bond propositions were still failing in Monday’s results. Proposition 8, a $3.9 million bond proposal to fund new Anchorage police fleet vehicles and other improvements, was failing with 48% of the vote. Proposition 1, a $6.9 million bond proposal that would fund various capital projects, was failing with 46% of the vote.

Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones said that the center has processed or begun to sort over 76,000 ballot envelopes, and more ballots are trickling in, though the number is decreasing since last week.

That means that there are at least 9,200 ballots left to tabulate.

[Anchorage mayor candidate Q&A: Dave Bronson]

[Anchorage mayor candidate Q&A: Forrest Dunbar]