How District 32 Voted in Tuesday’s Primary

Jay Barrett/KMXT

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In yesterday’s primary election, voters in Kodiak and much of District 32 voted with the rest of the state on the major Republican Senate race, but went strongly the other way on Proposition 1.
Those two races as well as a three-way battle for the local Republican House candidate nomination brought out just more than 24 percent of registered voters in the district that stretches from Kodiak Island around the Gulf coast to Whittier.
Measure 1, which would have rolled back the tax cut on oil companies the Parnell administration pushed, received overwhelming support in Kodiak, with 1,949 YES votes and just 994 NO votes. Statewide, the measure is losing by a small margin.
In the closed Republican primary, Kodiak voters went for Dan Sullivan by a slim margin in the U.S. Senate race over the other two candidates. Sullivan received 593 votes, compared to Joe Miller’s 585 and Mead Treadwell’s 522. Running essentially unopposed, incumbent Democrat Mark Begich received 847 Kodiak votes.
District 32 Democrats gave Forrest Dunbar 624 votes, while Republicans gave Don Young 1,286.
In the open gubernatorial primary, Democrat Byron Mallott received 626 of the votes cast in District 32, while in the closed Republican primary, Sean Parnell got 1,140. Together they will face independent Bill Walker in November.
Breaking down the three-way Republican primary for House District 32, winner Louise Stutes dominated in the two Kodiak City precincts, as well as Mission Road. Stutes had 163 votes in Kodiak Number 1 compared to Carol Austerman’s 83 and Rich Walker’s 67. In Kodiak Number 2, Stutes had 132 votes to Walker’s 93 and Austerman’s 83. In the Mission Road District, whose voters cast their ballots at Bayside Fire Hall, Stutes had 313 votes, Walker 183 and Austerman 138.
In Bell’s Flats, Rich Walker had 67 votes, just seven more votes than Stutes, and more than twice as many as Austerman’s 30. He also won the Yakutat and Tyonek vote with 13 and 2, respectively.
Austerman’s only wins came in likewise smaller precincts, such as Cordova, Old Harbor, Ouzinkie and Port Lions, and by relatively slim margins.
Stutes will now face Democrat Jerry McCune in the general election. District wide, the Cordova fisherman received 817 votes.