The four candidates to be Alaska’s next governor offered their visions for the state’s future at Alaska Public Media, Alaska’s News Source and KTOO’s Debate for the State on Thursday. The three Republicans and one Democrat in the race made their pitch to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Here are three takeaways from the debate.
- JKT and Wilson spar over budget, PFD taxes, education
Much of the action came in clashes between the top-polling Republican, Bernadette Wilson and the lone Democrat in the race, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
On the state budget, which largely thanks to the Permanent Fund dividend formula has a roughly $2 billion built-in deficit, Wilson said she’d start by looking for efficiencies. Wilson called for an audit of the government, looking for things that can be automated. Wilson said she’d give what she called a “state of the budget address” every year.
Wilson also called for large Permanent Fund dividends in line with a 1980s-era statute, which this year would have been roughly $3,800. Gov. Dunleavy proposed a statutory dividend in all eight of his budgets, though he never got the Legislature to approve one quite that big.
“Here's the deal: follow the formula. If the money isn't there, then follow the formula,” Wilson said. “You were never guaranteed a $3,800 Permanent Fund dividend. So pay out $25, pay out $50. The reality is, the money is there. They want to use it as a slush fund elsewhere.”
Wilson was the only candidate to support a formula dividend. Wilson also said she’d oppose new taxes, a position the other two Republicans backed.
Kreiss-Tomkins, meanwhile, said he was “pro-math.” He said he’d deliver a balanced budget — something he pointed out that incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy never did. He said he’d like to impose state income taxes on the private oil company Hilcorp to help close the deficit. And he said he’d introduce a constitutional amendment to protect the Permanent Fund from overspending.
“If we pay a $4,000 dividend, the only way that that dividend is going to get paid for is that you are spending down the Permanent Fund itself,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “The moment you start doing that, there will be no Permanent Fund, and there will be no Permanent Fund dividend decades from now.”
On education, Kreiss-Tomkins said he wanted to boost public school funding and fund school budgets a year in advance to prevent last-minute budget wrangling that often leaves schools scrambling, sometimes after the school year has already started.
Wilson said she wouldn’t support increasing funding without a clear picture of how it’d help improve student performance. She pushed for a more personalized education system, leveraging artificial intelligence to create individualized learning plans.
- ‘Three folks up here who have their personal house in order’
It might not be a surprise that at some moments of Thursday’s debate, it felt like a three-on-one contest. There are, of course, three Republicans facing a Democrat in the race.
But former Anchorage mayor Dave Bronson, running as a Republican, took some eyebrow-raising shots during his closing statement — and not at the Democrat.
Leading the state forward through the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead requires “experience,” he said.
“There's three folks up here on this podium that have experience. There is one that brags that she does not,” Bronson said. “There's three three folks up here who have their personal house in order, that pay their personal bills. There is one that does not.”
Wilson is running as an outsider and has leaned her business experience. Recently, though, she’s taken heat for reporting by the Alaska Landmine and the Anchorage Daily News showing Wilson had been sued over some big unpaid bills.
Asked about those lawsuits in an Alaska Public Media interview in August, Wilson said her financial struggles had taught her important lessons. She pointed out that President Donald Trump has also declared bankruptcy six times.
That was a surprising way for Bronson to start his closing statement. He and the third-place Republican, former attorney general Treg Taylor, are both urging conservatives to rank all three Republicans ahead of Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
And they’re standing by that. Bronson and Taylor both said at the debate they’d rank each other No. 2 on their ballots, and rank Wilson third. Bronson said the ideological differences between him and Kreiss-Tomkins were just too big to ignore.
Neither Wilson nor Kreiss-Tomkins would share who they’d rank as their second choice on the ranked choice ballot.
- A feisty debate over civility and bipartisanship
Another remarkable moment came in response to a question asking the candidates how they’d work with their political opponents and show Alaskans that compromise is possible.
Bronson, Taylor and Kreiss-Tomkins all said they’d try to find common ground.
“We probably agree on 70% about how to move Alaska forward,” Taylor said. “Let's focus on that. Build up some trust with each other.”
Bronson said he’d come to like Kreiss-Tomkins quite a bit, that they’d sat down and had coffee. They did a little side-hug.
Wilson took the opposite approach.
“Well, apparently, this is a question everyone's going to brag about how well they can sing Kumbaya with each other,” she said. “But here's the deal: How has that worked for you? We've been told that we need to just go have another cup of coffee, or we need to go have another cocktail together. You've had bipartisan coalitions in the House and in the Senate. How has that worked for you, Alaska?”
Wilson pointed out that Kreiss-Tomkins had voted for a bill that would have imposed a state income tax in 2017. That bill did not become law.
Bronson jumped in with a rebuttal, pointing out that the combative approach Wilson was offering sounded an awful lot like what he’d seen from incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
“We haven't been going down there and singing Kumbaya. That's the point,” he said. “The governor and the Legislature have not been getting along down there.”
Bronson said that’s been counterproductive. He said compromise was necessary to take the kinds of steps he’d like the state to take — building roads to resources and enabling a gas pipeline to move forward.
Kreiss-Tomkins made it even more explicit.
“If you've liked the last eight years of Governor Dunleavy, you have a very clear option for four more with Ms. Wilson,” he said.