Representative Neal Foster has won the primary election and will remain the Democratic candidate for Alaska House District 39.
Official results for District 39 were posted on Monday and incumbent Neal Foster took over 52% of the vote with 1,061 votes. But he had some good competition from Tyler Ivanoff of Shishmaref who took about 47% of the vote with 961 votes.
That’s already caused Foster to reconsider some of his positions. Many constituents want a full PFD under the formula from a 1982 state law, and he says they seem to understand the possible consequences that could mean for programs like the Power Cost Equalization (PCE).
“There’s a very strong sense of wanting to see the full PFD and I’ll likely be voting in support of that in this next election.”
– Neal Foster
Representative Neal Foster of House District 39. Photo courtesy of Neal Foster. 
On the other side, it was Ivanoff’s first time running for state office. Although he may have lost this race, he’s already making plans for a write-in campaign.
“I didn’t campaign as much as I could have. Most of my campaigning was done on Facebook with a small budget. I would have to reach out to further communities in the rest of the district. I’ll have to reach out to those communities that maybe just voted because they saw berry buckets from Neal Foster.”
– Tyler Ivanoff
Ivanoff looks at his close race with Foster and other races in the state primaries as a message from Alaskans.
“I think they’re pro-PFD and that the majority of people in Alaska are kind of fed-up with the legislators and the decisions they have made and that’s driving a lot of people to vote them out.”
– Tyler Ivanoff
Incumbent Neal Foster has been the representative for District 39 since 2009 and currently serves as the co-chair of the House Finance Committee.
Foster will be running against Dan Holmes of Nome in November’s general election. Holmes has never held state office and ran unopposed on the Republican ticket in the August primary.
Image at top: Nome’s Old St. Joe’s polling place is the base for Region 4 elections office staff during the Primary Elections. Photo: David Dodman, KNOM file.
