A UAA political analyst says the relatively high turnout this year may stem from the high-stakes races for governor and U.S. Senate at the top of the ballot, as well as an appetite for change among voters.
Anchorage Daily News · Mari Kanagy · September 4, 2026
Nearly 167,000 Alaskans cast ballots in this year's primary election, one of the highest turnouts for a primary in more than a decade.
The ballots cast represented about 27.7% of the state's roughly 602,000 registered voters. This year's total is substantially higher than the roughly 109,000 ballots cast out of 605,000 registered voters in the most recent 2024 primary.
A University of Alaska political researcher says the relatively high turnout this year may stem from unusually high stakes in the races at the top of the ballot, as well as an appetite for change in leadership.
"Every election is going to have their own specifics and their own peculiarities," said Ian Hartman, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage. "And the stakes for this election cycle are most certainly high."
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, is term-limited from seeking reelection. Of the 17 candidates who vied to replace him, four are set to advance to the general election: Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Republicans Bernadette Wilson, Dave Bronson and Candi English, who was former Attorney General Treg Taylor's running mate.
English was elevated onto the ballot as a candidate for governor Monday after Taylor was disqualified for failing to disclose the names of his tenants as required by law.
Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan also faces strong opposition from Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, who outperformed the incumbent by eight points in the primary field of 16 candidates.
In the U.S. House race, the two candidates garnering the most votes in a primary field of 15 were Republican incumbent Rep. Nick Begich III and independent Bill Hill, a retired educator from Bristol Bay. Hill is Begich's most high-profile challenger after Democrat Matt Schultz suspended his campaign in July, citing a lack of institutional support from the Democratic Party.
Also on the primary ballot was Ballot Measure 1, which asked voters whether to reinstate campaign finance limits. The measure was approved by 72.2% of voters and is set to limit political contributions from individual, political parties and other groups.
In the past decade, only the 2022 primary election -- which drew around 192,000 voters -- outpaced this year's turnout. The 2022 primary was held alongside a special general election for the U.S. House following the death of longtime Rep. Don Young, giving voters an extra incentive to turn out.
2022 was also the first year Alaska operated under its new elections system, in which all candidates for an office run against each other in an open primary election. The top four candidates, regardless of political party, advance to the November ranked choice general election, where voters rank the candidates in order of preference.
For comparison, roughly 115,000 people out of the state's 566,000 registered voters turned out in the 2018 primary, which was conducted under the state's old partisan primary system. That was the year Dunleavy was first elected as governor, besting six opponents in the Republican primary and advancing to the November general election.
What Alaska regions had the highest and lowest turnout?
Voting levels varied widely across Alaska.
Anchorage was home to the legislative districts with both the highest and lowest voter turnouts.
In the South Anchorage district that stretches from Huffman Road and Glen Alps on the Hillside south to Girdwood and Whittier, turnout surpassed 43.7%, with 7,130 of 16,313 registered voters casting a ballot. The district, currently represented by one-term independent Rep. Ky Holland, is one of Alaska's wealthiest and recorded the highest levels of voter turnout across the state in the last two statewide primary elections.
The state House district covering Government Hill and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson had the lowest turnout in the state with 9.2%. The House seat representing the district is one of nine open seats in the Alaska Legislature on the November ballot.
In that district, 1,053 of 11,444 registered voters cast a ballot in the primary.
Turnout in multiple rural Alaska districts averaged below the statewide rate.
In some rural communities, polling places were not open for the full day on election day, Alaska Native voting advocates say, leaving residents there a narrower window to vote than others in the rest of the state. Opening every precinct on election day, especially those in some of the state's most remote areas serving predominantly Alaska Native communities, has long been a challenge for the Division of Elections due to weather disrupting flights, lack of staffing and other obstacles.
[The state says all precincts opened on primary election day. Alaska Native advocates say barriers to voting remain.]
In Southwest Alaska, the state House district representing the Aleutians Islands, Bristol Bay and the Lake and Peninsula Borough saw roughly 25% turnout. Turnout was slightly lower in the Western Alaska district representing Nome and the Norton Sound region, at 22.3%.
Turnout in the district that includes communities in the North Slope Borough and Northwest Alaska, such as Utqiaġvik and Kotzebue, was 16.7%, roughly 10 percentage points below the state average.
The district representing Bethel and much of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta saw even lower turnout, at 15.9%.
One rural district had a higher turnout than the statewide average. The state House district spanning much of the Interior, including Glennallen, Tok and the Yukon-Koyukuk region, saw voter turnout of 30.3% in the August primary.
Competitive governor's race draws voters
The combination of an open governor's race and a high-profile Senate contest may have given voters more reason to participate than they had in the 2024 primary, Hartman said. In the governor's race, none of the candidates have the advantages of incumbency in the general election.
The field for governor included 12 Republicans, two Democrats and three independents.
"Not having an incumbent governor, having a wide-open field for that elected office, is going to create another uncertain piece of the puzzle" in the general election, Hartman said.
Although Peltola and Sullivan were the only two well-funded candidates running in the primary for the closely watched U.S. Senate race, how well Sullivan and Peltola performed was an important bellwether heading into the November general election.
Hartman noted that national election watchers who had previously characterized Alaska as leaning Republican are reassessing the contest after Peltola led Sullivan in the primary.
"I think that's a real toss-up," Hartman said about the race.
Peltola was an incumbent U.S. representative in 2024 when she won that year's U.S. House primary, only to lose her seat in the general election to Republican Nick Begich.
The primary results could be particularly meaningful for Sullivan's chances of reelection, Hartman said, because he will not have a Republican presidential candidate at the top of the ticket to drive GOP turnout in November, like when Peltola lost in 2024.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed to come to Alaska before the November election to help boost Sullivan's candidacy.
Turnout will likely be substantially higher in the November general election than it was in this year's primary. But without a presidential race on the ballot, Hartman said he doesn't expect turnout in November to be as high as in the 2024 general election, especially without a "particularly polarizing" figure at the top of the ballot like Trump.
In non-presidential election years, Hartman said it's typical for voters to move away from incumbent candidates.
But he said he sees a particularly "anti-incumbent" sentiment in this year's federal elections, with the Republicans controlling the White House as well as both chambers of Congress.
"When you have one party that's in control of two of the three branches of government, such as it were, you're likely to see in the midterms a swing back the other way," Hartman said.
Still, Hartman said that the primary electorate is not necessarily a preview of exactly who will vote or how they will vote in November. Some voters who sat out the primary will participate in the general election, he said, while others who voted for candidates or parties they do not typically support may return to their usual voting patterns.