By Michael Armstrong

Homer Independent Press

With 17 candidates on the primary ballot for Alaska governor, the three Democrats running seek to make sure at least one of them advances to the general election. Under Alaska’s open primary system, voters pick one candidate, with the top four candidates making the final ballot. Last month, former Alaska Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, 39, visited Homer to make his pitch. He spoke on Feb. 22 at the Kachemak Community Center and later that day at Sweetgale Meadery.

An Eagle Scout born and raised in Sitka, Kreiss-Tomkins — also known by his initials, JKT — got his start in politics when in 2012 he dropped out of Yale University to be, as he put it, the sacrificial Democratic lamb in a race against the Republican incumbent, Bill Thomas, for the Sitka area seat.

“I was kind of antsy and really wanted to get into the real world and make an impact and make a difference,” Kreiss-Tomkins said at the Sweetgale Meadery talk to about 25 people in the cramped tasting room.

In a recount, he won by 32 votes.

In previous elections, Thomas had won with 70% of the vote. Kreiss-Tomkins said he went into the election to win.

“It was a grassroots campaign across Southeast Alaska, and I knocked on nearly every door across an archipelago of islands from Metlakatla in the south to Hoonah and Haines in the north,” he said.

In 2012, only 10 Democrats served in the Alaska House. Kreiss-Tomkins said he and other Democrats worked to recruit and get elected more Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans.

“And in 2016 we’re able to form the bipartisan coalition in the Alaska House of Representatives, which former Representative (Paul) Seaton was a part of,” he said, “… That bipartisan coalition, which still exists today in the House and now also exists in the Senate, is one of the best things that we have going in Alaska, something we should all be very, very proud of. There’s nothing like it that exists in any of the other 49 states in the country.”

It’s that bipartisanship spirit Kreiss-Tomkins seeks to bring to the governorship.

“We’ve got really good people who want to make what I think are really good decisions for the long term future of the state,” he said.

When it runs up against the office of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, though, bipartisanship flounders like a rusty Subaru stuck in a breakup road.

“We have arguably the worst governor in Alaska’s history in the governor’s office right now. And I don’t mean that in a red-meat kind of way. I just mean it literally,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “… He’s kind of checked out. He won’t even talk with legislators. He won’t even talk with other decision makers in the state.”

Kreiss-Tomkins said being the kind of governor who can work with the Legislature inspires his candidacy.

“I think if we can have a governor who has that same spirit of problem solving that I think exists in the Legislature … you have the ability for those branches of government to work together and solve the big problems that face Alaska,” he said.

One of those problems is protecting the Alaska Permanent Fund. Tens of billions of dollars in the fund are vulnerable to a simple majority vote, he said.

“It’s easier to spend down the permanent fund than it is to cut the budget or raise taxes, and I’m very worried about that. I think it’s a ‘when’ and not an ‘if’ that happens in years in the future,” he said.

Kreiss-Tomkins said the state needs fairness in the oil and gas tax system, noting that under current Alaska law, major oil company Hilcorp, an S corporation, doesn’t pay corporate income taxes while other companies, C corporations like ConocoPhillips and British Petroleum, did.


In an S corporation, income passes through to shareholders who then pay personal income tax. According to a sponsor statement by Sen. Bill Wielechowski for a 2023 bill to end the S Corporation, before Alaska eliminated the state income tax, Alaska could tax income on S corporations.


“It just makes no sense that you have, you know, certain boats in the Homer fishing fleet that pay fish tax, and some don’t imagine that sort of backwards, unfair system applied to oil,” he said.

That’s a tax discrepancy under consideration in this year’s Legislature. In his February Capitol Report, Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, wrote that the Senate Resources Committee added language from Senate Bill 92 to Senate Bill 227, the governor’s fiscal plan, that “requires certain oil and gas S-Corporations and Limited Liability Companies to pay corporate income tax, but amended with brackets for taxable income levels and tax rates beginning at $1 million net income.” If passed, it would raise an estimated $100 million annually, Stevens wrote.

On a question from the audience about the possibility of Democrats splitting the vote so that only Republicans wind up on the general election ballot, Kreiss-Tomkins said it’s more likely Republicans will split the vote than the Democrats.


“I think it’s much more likely that there will be two Democrats in the final four than zero,” he said.

Kreiss-Tomkins said he and the other Democrats, Tom Begich and Matt Claman, know and respect each other and will be watching the opinion polls.

“If it looks like there might be this lockout scenario where, like, no Democrats get in, and, as you put it, all four maybe of a different political persuasion, then we would do what is necessary to avoid that scenario,” he said.

In response to a series of questions about affordable childcare, education funding and closing schools, Kreiss-Tomkins got to the heart of the issue: How do you keep young Alaskans from moving out of state?

“Childcare, I think, is one of these issues that is preventing young Alaskans from making a future here,” he said. “… It’s probably one of the core affordability issues in the state.”

But the issue also is public school and university education, he said.

“State responsibility is adequate public education, and that’s not happening right now,” he said. “… In terms of young people in Alaska, really sadly, the number of people who are leaving the state, all of the number that we retain or are attracting, is really in the negative right now, and I think a part of that is the university, which should be a magnet for young energy, for innovation, for economic growth, is not that anymore.”

With a handout with “donate here” codes, like all candidates, Kreiss-Tomkins made a pitch for donations.

“We started this campaign 16 days ago in Sitka, my hometown, and so we’ve bounced around the state from Fairbanks to Juneau to Anchorage and now here in Homer,” he said.

Kreiss-Tomkins said that on the first day of his campaign he’d raised $685,000.

“I’m very proud of that,” he said. “I’m going to be working very hard to make sure we continue to raise the resources for this campaign to make sure that we have a good outcome in November.”

For more information on Kreiss-Tomkins, visit jktforak.com.