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.