Democrat Grier Hopkins clinched the Fairbanks North Star Borough mayoral seat in a razor-thin victory, flipping the post held by Republican Bruce Ward—who reached his term limit—in a region former President Donald Trump won by over 10 points in 2020.
Municipal elections in the central Alaskan borough, which encompasses the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, took place on October 1, and borough officials have been tallying absentee ballots during the last few days. According to the borough’s “unofficial results” posted Tuesday afternoon, of the 19,703 votes counted, Hopkins secured the victory by a margin of 154 votes.
Hopkins, former Alaska state representative who served from 2018 to 2022, edged out former Alaska State Senator John Bruce Coghill Jr. for the three-year term. Hopkins received 9,434 votes, or 48.41 percent of the total, while Coghill garnered 9,280 votes, or 47.62 percent. The margin of victory was less than 1 percent between the top two candidates.
A third-party hopeful, Robert Shields, won 705 votes, 3.62 percent of the vote, which was instrumental in swinging the election. Voter turnout was around 25 percent.
Hopkins told Newsweek in a statement Wednesday afternoon, “The victory was close, and very hard fought but also amicable. Both myself and John Coghill ran mostly positive campaigns about how to grow our community, create a strong economy and Improve local quality of life. The differences were between how we’d get there, and I will prioritize stronger funding of our schools. That community first approach allowed for cross over partisan voters to support me, as opposed to partisan fights and culture war issues.”
Regarding both the previous and coming presidential election, Hopkins said, “The FNSB [Fairbanks North Star Borough] voters like candidates who support Alaskan issues, and work together to solve problems. We are pragmatic people, and the majority of us are not registered for either party.”
The Democratic victor is the son of former Mayor Luke Hopkins, who in 2016 lost the Alaska State Senate seat to Coghill. Ward served two terms in the role, having secured just over 50 percent of the vote in 2018, when he was first elected, and 82 percent in 2021.
The Alaskan borough is in the traditionally red state, which favored Trump by 10 points in 2020, as the presidential nominee secured 52.8 percent of the vote to Biden’s 42.8 percent.
While the state reports election data based on House districts rather than boroughs, Fairbanks North Star Borough encompasses Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and a small portion of 6, as confirmed to Newsweek by the Alaska Division of Elections.
In 2020, Trump carried those six districts with a 15-point lead, receiving 57.8 percent of the vote compared to Biden’s 42.2 percent. When District 6 is excluded from the borough’s count, Trump led by a smaller margin of 12.8 points, with 56.4 percent to Biden’s 43.6 percent, but still led by more than at the state level.
The only time a Democratic presidential candidate won Alaska was in 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson was elected. The Republican Party has carried the state by comfortable double-digit margins in recent cycles; however, Trump’s margin did shrink in the state from 2016 to 2020. In his first election against Hillary Clinton, he carried the state by nearly 15 points.
The state, rated “Solid Republican” in presidential races by Cook Political Report, has had a handful of Democratic governors, including the state’s first governor, Bill Egan. Most recent polls for Alaska show Trump leading Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris by 5 to 10 percentage points.
An Alaska Survey Research poll of 1,182 likely voters conducted from September 27 to September 29 found 52 percent of voters backing Trump and 43 percent supporting Harris. The poll has a margin of error of plus/minus 2.9 percentage points.
