Alaska gubernatorial election, 1998

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Alaska gubernatorial election, 1998
Flag of Alaska.svg
←  1994 November 3, 1998 2002  →
  GovTonyKnowles.jpg No image.svg
Nominee Tony Knowles Robin L. Taylor
Party Democratic Write-in
Running mate Fran Ulmer None
Popular vote112,87940,209
Percentage51.3%18.3%
  No image.svg No image.svg
Nominee John Lindauer Ray Metcalfe
Party Republican Republican Moderate
Running mate Jerry Ward Clyde Baxley
Popular vote39,33113,540
Percentage17.9%6.1%
Governor before election

Tony Knowles
Democratic

Elected Governor

Tony Knowles
Democratic

The 1998 Alaska gubernatorial general election took place on November 3, 1998. The election resulted in a landslide for the Democratic incumbent, Tony Knowles, who had won the 1994 gubernatorial election by only 536 votes. [1] [2] Knowles was the first incumbent governor to attain re-election since 1978. [3] As of 2018, this is the most recent election in which a Democrat was elected Governor of Alaska and the most recent election in which an Alaskan governor was re-elected.

Democratic Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party. The Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, and leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice.

Tony Knowles (politician) American politician and restaurateur

Anthony Carroll Knowles is an American politician and businessman who served as the seventh governor of Alaska from December 1994 to December 2002. Barred from seeking a third consecutive term as governor in 2002, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and again for governor in 2006. In September 2008, Knowles became president of the National Energy Policy Institute, a non-profit energy policy organization funded by billionaire George Kaiser's family foundation, and located at the University of Tulsa.

Contents

Candidates

Incumbent Democratic governor Tony Knowles was up for re-election. On the Republican side, three major candidates jockeyed for the nomination: businessman John Howard Lindauer, state senator Robin L. Taylor, and Wayne A. Ross. Lindauer won the open primary election, with Taylor coming in second. Jim Sykes, founder of the Green Party of Alaska, ran on that party's ticket, but Desa Jacobsson later replaced him on the ballot. Ray Metcalfe, a defecting Republican who had founded the Republican Moderate Party of Alaska, also ran.

John Howard Lindauer II is an American economist who served as chancellor for the University of Alaska Anchorage from 1976 to 1978 then was Dean of the School of Business and Public Affairs. He was the Republican Party candidate for governor of Alaska in 1998. He is the father of Susan Lindauer and John Howard Lindauer III, and lived in Alaska from 1976 until 2002. He currently resides in Chicago.

Robin L. Taylor is a lawyer from the U.S. state of Alaska. He has also served as a judge, government administrator and Republican Party politician. It is in this latter capacity that he is best known. Taylor served in the Alaska Legislature from 1985 to 2003. Running for governor of Alaska in 1998 in a blanket primary, Taylor was outpolled by John Lindauer for the Republican nomination. When questions arose over the source of Lindauer's campaign monies, Taylor reemerged as a write-in candidate for the office backed by the Republican Party of Alaska, who had disowned Lindauer. While Taylor outpolled Lindauer in the general election, both candidacies fell far behind that of incumbent Tony Knowles, who was elected to a second term.

The Green Party of Alaska is the state party organization for Alaska of the Green Party of the United States of America. Alaska was the first state to gain Green Party ballot access, in 1990, when Jim Sykes ran for governor. Sykes had previously filed a ballot access lawsuit, citing an earlier case, Vogler v. Miller.

Campaign

Lindauer's campaign faltered late into the race as a result of his failure to disclose that his wife, a wealthy Chicago lawyer, had financed the bulk of his campaign. [3] As a result of this revelation, the Republicans withdrew their support of Lindauer [2] and backed Robin Taylor, the runner-up of the Republican primary, as a write-in candidate. Due to the lateness of this change, the Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a court order to delay the election. [4] The collapse of Lindauer's campaign resulted in a three-way split of the Republican vote between him, Taylor, and the Republican Moderate Metcalfe.

Chicago City in Illinois, United States

Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,716,450 (2017), it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States, and the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often referred to as "Chicagoland." The Chicago metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States, the fourth largest in North America, and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area.

A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. The system is almost totally confined to elections in the United States. Some U.S. states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker, with the write-in candidate's name, to the ballot in lieu of actually writing in the candidate's name. Write-in candidacies are sometimes a result of a candidate being legally or procedurally ineligible to run under his or her own name or party; write-in candidacies may be permitted where term limits bar an incumbent candidate from being officially nominated for, or being listed on the ballot for, re-election. In some cases, write-in campaigns have been organized to support a candidate who is not personally involved in running; this may be a form of draft campaign.

Knowles defeated Taylor, his closest opponent, by 33%, the widest margin of victory for a gubernatorial candidate in Alaska history. Moreover, if Taylor's and Lindauer's totals are added together, Knowles defeated the two Republicans combined by 16% – still the widest margin in Alaska history until 2010. This was also the first time since 1970 that any candidate won an outright majority of the vote in an Alaska gubernatorial election.

Results

Republican primary

1998 Republican primary for Alaska governor [5]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican John Lindauer 25,07041.65
Republican Robin Taylor17,67929.37
Republican Wayne Ross17,44528.98
Total votes60,194100.00

General election

1998 gubernatorial election, Alaska [6]
PartyCandidateVotes%±
Democratic Tony Knowles (inc.) 112,879 51.27 +10.2
Write-in Robin L. Taylor 40,20918.26+18.2
Republican John Lindauer 39,33117.86-22.9
Republican Moderate Ray Metcalfe 13,5406.15N/A
Green Desa Jacobsson6,6183.01-1.1
Alaskan Independence Sylvia Sullivan4,2381.92-11.8
Write-in Others3,3621.53+1.4
Majority72,67033.01+32.7
Turnout 220,17748.57-14.9
Democratic hold Swing +32.7

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References

  1. ↑ http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/17/ap/alaska/index.html?eref=sitesearch%5Bdead+link%5D
  2. 1 2 Pear, Robert (1998-11-04). "THE 1998 ELECTIONS: STATE BY STATE -- WEST; ALASKA". The New York Times.
  3. 1 2 "Knowles wins rare 2nd term in Alaska - November 3, 1998". 13 February 2007.
  4. ↑ "Alaska GOP wants election delayed - October 30, 1998". 16 May 2006.
  5. ↑ "1998 PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS". Alaska Division of Elections. Archived from the original on 14 May 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
  6. ↑ "Election Summary Report: State of Alaska 1998 General Election Official Results". Archived from the original on 2008-11-27.[ dead link ]
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