APRIL 9 - APRIL 22, 2024
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE
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USUAA elections: Luis Sanchez clutches presidency with wide margins With the remaining 45.4% of the vote shared between the two competing campaigns and abstentions, Sanchez and his running mate Eisa Chang won with comfortable margins. By Mark Zimmerman reporter4@thenorthernlight.org
With a total of 177 electronic ballots being cast in the April 2 USUAA elections, Luis Sanchez and vice-presidential running mate Eisa Chang won — securing 79 votes, or 44.6%. This victory comes in landslide margins, with opponents Iqlas Dubed/Fortune Dinganga scoring 52 votes at 29.3% and Joe PaviaJones/Hannah Huber scoring 36 votes at 20.3%. Abstentions — numbering 10 — accounted for 5.6% of the total. The Sanchez-Chang campaign’s aggressive get-out-the-vote initiatives — marked by a series of lighthearted fliers featuring jokes and pop-culture references — greatly increased its public profile in the run-up. The policy proposals of the incoming Sanchez administration were outlined in a TNL candidate’s townhall last month. There, Sanchez proposed increasing Seawolf Shuttle frequency through a dual route and increasing outreach and transparency between USUAA and the student body. Chang emphasized bolstering Disability Support Services and building a positive work environment in student government. Optimizing parking space use through clearly communicating space availability is also a chief
PHOTO BY MATTHEW SCHMITZ.
Luis Sanchez speaks at TNL Town Hall on March 25.
priority of their upcoming term. In other votes, USUAA senate incumbents saw no major challenges in this cycle, with Chuol Mut, Jowielle Corpuz and Jason Ritter retaining their seats. The incumbents saw small write-in challenges from Kaitlin Norton and others who were unnamed. Delegate elections for various colleges largely went unfilled, with unspecified write-in candidates scoring single-digit
vote-counts facing down a consistent spread of 149 abstentions for each vote. An exception for named-candidate participation appeared in the Graduate College, where Aaron Barker secured seven votes. Concert Board’s makeup remained largely unchanged with Fotokalafi Vea, Selma Casagranda, Hannah Bissett, Winston Ajakaye and Titessa Epsilon all retaining their seats.
PHOTO BY MATTHEW SCHMITZ.
Eisa Chang speaks at TNL Town Hall on March 25.
Media Board saw Richard PerezSmith II and Louis Javanovich retaining their seats — seeing only 11 write-in votes for Lila Steele and unnamed others. With 170 abstentions and 11 write-ins, the Media Board remained unchanged. Ballots were sent to students electronically in late March, with the voting deadline set at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday April 2.
After Anchorage’s municipal election, Dave Bronson and Suzanne LaFrance tee-up for a runoff challenge Anchorage’s April 2 municipal election readied the mayoral candidates for a second round, while down-ballot votes protected school board incumbents and bolstered Anchorage’s public spending. By Mark Zimmerman reporter4@thenorthernlight.org
After April 2, the start to Anchorage’s mayor’s race finally came to an end. The race — expected to reach a runoff due to neither of the four leading candidates reaching 45% of the vote — was expensive and extensive. This was due in part to its early start and the high political profile of Dave Bronson’s mayoral administration. While positioned as a formidable challenger due to his endorsements and policy background, former Legislator Chris Tuck — at 8% — fell behind in early results — trailing former Anchorage Economic Development Corporation Chair Bill Popp — at 17%. Former assemblywoman and one-time State House candidate Suzanne LaFrance narrowly led incumbent Mayor Dave Bronson by a margin of 36% to 34%. thenorthernlight.org
LaFrance’s narrow lead over Bronson comes with a swift push to the May 14 runoff. After accruing a wide fundraising lead over other non-incumbent challengers and high-profile endorsements from labor groups, her campaign was positioned to directly challenge Mayor Bronson going into April. Bronson’s campaign was expecting this result, with the mayor telling TNL in March: “If we get to a runoff here in May, it’ll probably be me and Suzanne.” During his time with TNL, Mayor Bronson accused LaFrance of enabling dysfunction in the municipal government during COVID-19 and in the run-up to his time in office. “My administration is standing between single party governance in the city,” Bronson said during his interview, “and the balance that we need within our government.” LaFrance asserted her confidence in her campaign after results came in.
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“I was really excited by the results and happy to be moving to the runoff,” she said in a call with TNL on April 3 “I’m really proud of the campaign that we ran, we’ve got some good endorsements.” The opposition candidate looked forward to using her fundraising and polling lead over Bronson to consolidate a coalition of voters that voted for Tuck and Popp. “We’re building up our team, doubling canvassing efforts.” She also praised down-ballot results, with all current school board incumbents retaining seats and most proposed city bonds — except for one that would provide outdoor public restrooms and one that would build new cemeteries in Girdwood and Eagle River — passing. In March, LaFrance said of Bronson: “He came in with zero experience and had to learn Robert’s Rules, and had to try to learn the processes as well,” drawing a contrast between her public-and-private @tnl_updates
sector experience and the mayor’s. TNL did not receive a response from Bronson’s campaign on April 2 or 3, but they are expected to mirror their 2021 strategy that defeated then-assemblymember Forrest Dunbar. In that year, his team focused on grassroots efforts prior to the runoff, ramping up spending after citywide elections to take advantage of a less-crowded field. Aside from the mayor’s race — eight out of nine bonds put on the ballot are expected to pass. All current school board incumbents up for election — Pat Higgins, Dora Wilson, Carl Jacobs and Mark Littlefield — held wide leads over their challengers at 58%, 63%, 58% and 100% respectively. Ballots for the mayoral runoff elections will be mailed to Anchorage voters starting April 30, with the election occurring on May 14.
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