Robyn Burke on track to win Alaska’s House District 40 race

With results from Tuesday’s general election streaming in from northern communities, Democrat Robyn “Niayuq” Burke was on track 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 Thursday, Burke had 53.12% of the vote, independent Thomas “Ikaaq” Baker had 23.95% and Democrat Saima “Ikrik” Chase had 22.04%. Burke said that results from Atqasuk, where she received 100% of the vote in the primary election, were mailed to Anchorage 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 end up with over 50% of the vote, the threshold needed to win the race outright and avoid ranked-choice tabulation. She 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.”

Incumbent Baker, who was appointed to the seat by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy last November and who on Thursday was trailing behind Burke in second place, 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.”

The third-place candidate, Chase, was traveling Thursday and wasn’t able to immediately respond to questions.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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

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.”