Dunbar and progressives lead in very early Anchorage election results

With less than a fifth of the votes counted, progressive candidates and causes are doing well in Anchorage’s election.

Anchorage Assemblymember Forrest Dunbar leads the mayoral race, the recall of Assembly Chairman Felix Rivera is failing, and progressive school board candidates are leading across the board. Just 10,438 of more than 58,000 ballots have been counted as of Tuesday night. The next release of results is expected later today.

“There is certainly more to do, and the elections team will be working daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. processing envelopes and ballots to get results tabulated as soon as possible,” Anchorage Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones said in a statement released late Tuesday night.

The results could, obviously, shift as more ballots are counted but it’s an early sign that recent gains for Anchorage progressives—reflected both on the Anchorage Assembly and in legislative representation—aren’t going anywhere soon.

Dunbar leads in the mayoral race with 3,701 votes (35.4%), extreme-right candidate Dave Bronson has 3,116 votes (29.8%), moderate progressive Bill Falsey received 1,281 votes (12%), conservative candidate Bill Evans received 999 votes (9.5%), far-right candidate Mike Robbins received 745 (7%) and moderate progressive George Martinez got 321 votes (3%). No candidate is near the 45% needed to avoid the May 11 runoff election at this point so it’s looking like the race everyone expected between Dunbar and Bronson.

The three leading progressive mayoral candidates have a cumulative total of 5,303 votes (50.8%) to the three leading conservative mayoral candidates’ cumulative total of 4,860 (46.5%).

The recall of Assembly Chairman Rivera is currently failing 939 no votes to 638 yes votes.

The progressive candidates for the Anchorage School Board hold varying leads over conservative candidates.

Kelly Lessens has 3,699 votes to extreme-right Judy Eledge’s 3,376. Pat Higgins leads for School Board Seat E with 3,264 votes to Sami Graham’s 2,692. Dora Wilson has 4,260 votes to Kim Paulson’s 2,888 votes in the race for Seat F. Carl Jacobs has 4,726 to Elisa Vakalis’ 4,166 votes in the race for Seat G. All but the race for Seat G have other candidates involved. See the full results here.