The Alaska Division of Elections finally tallied Kodiak’s 3500 absentee votes on Thursday, and while those votes didn’t change much on the statewide election landscape, we have a better idea of how Kodiak voted this election.
Generally speaking, Kodiak went for Republican candidates again this year, but that doesn’t mean the island is completely red.
For the state Senate P seat, Republican incumbent Gary Stevens increased his lead over Steve Madden with 2500 votes, that’s over two-thirds of the vote.
Kodiak also went for Republicans up the ballot, but with much smaller margins than we typically see in Kodiak.
For the US Senate seat, Kodiak gave incumbent Dan Sullivan 53% of their votes, and for the US House seat, Kodiak gave Don Young 52%. Only 270 Kodiak votes separated Young and his challenger, Alyse Galvin, who lost Kodiak in 2018 by the same margin.
How did Kodiak vote for the President?
That race was also relatively close. President Trump increased his margin this year after getting only 50% of Kodiak’s votes in 2016. In 2020, Trump received 800 votes more than Joe Biden, enough to garner 53% of the Kodiak vote.
Trump, however, continued to underperform in Kodiak compared to recent Republican presidential candidates. In 2012, Mitt Romney got 55% of the vote. And in 2008, John McCain got 63% of the vote.
Plus, Biden did better in Kodiak than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, when she got only 36% of the vote. Biden got 42% this year.
Kodiak voters overwhelmingly approved both ballot measures. They approved of Ballot Measure #1, to change how the oil industry is taxed, with 55% of their vote. And approved Ballot Measure #2, concerning ranked choice elections, with a 58% share. Statewide, Ballot Measure #1 is failing with only 41% of the vote; Ballot Measure #2, though, is still statistically hanging in the balance.
Absentee Votes
And just like the rest of the state and the country, Kodiak’s absentee votes were more likely to reflect Democratic or progressive votes.
Kodiak absentee voters cast more ballots for Joe Biden, who got 56% of that vote. US Senate challenger Al Gross got 55% and US House challenger Alyse Galvin got 58% of Kodiak’s absentee vote.
And absentee voters approved of the ballot measures, with #1 getting 62% of Kodiak’s absentee vote, and #2 getting 67%.
As previously reported by KMXT, voter registration trends in Kodiak for the past 20 years point to a community shifting away from the Republican party and toward the Democratic party and independent status. The 2020 races indicate that Kodiak has been voting slightly more blue with each election.