The Alaska primary election Tuesday saw the defeat of both ballot measures and a couple of very close races between Democrats in Anchorage. In House District Seventeen in Airport Heights, Democrat Geran Tarr came out about a hundred votes ahead of Cal Williams. And in Senate District M, in East Anchorage, including the military base and Eagle River, there are still hundreds of absentee ballots to count, and Bettye Davis holds a slim lead.
It was a gritty and contentious primary election battle between Bettye Davis and Harry Crawford, and the spending is not over yet. By Wednesday morning, just 75 votes separated the candidates at final tally. Bettye Davis has 1,294 votes and Harry Crawford, 1,219. But, as things stand, it appears that Davis has won the right to run against Anna Fairclough in the November Election. And Davis says it will be a challenge.
“The money that I spent in the primary, I was hoping I would be able to use that really geared toward Anna because she’s raised quite a bit of money. But I really now have to focus more on raising money because I know that she has a big advantage. And in order to run this kind of race it’s going to take more money,” Davis said.
Fairclough ran unopposed during the closed Republican primary and garnered 4,160 votes. According to the Alaska Public Offices Commission’s 7-day expenditure report, Fairclough has about $57,000 on hand for the general election campaign. There are still 890 absentee ballots yet to be counted in Senate District M. The Alaska Division of Elections should have a final count next week.
Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.
