Frances Ann "Fran" Ulmer is an American administrator and Democratic politician from the U.S. state of Alaska. She served as the seventh lieutenant governor of Alaska from 1994 to 2002 under Governor Tony Knowles, becoming the first woman elected to statewide office in Alaska, and lost the 2002 gubernatorial election against Republican Frank Murkowski. In 2007 she became the Chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), before serving as Chair of the United States Arctic Research Commission between 2011 and 2020, appointed by President Barack Obama.
Walter Joseph Hickel was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician who served as the second governor of Alaska from 1966 to 1969 and 1990 to 1994, as well as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1969 to 1970. He worked as a construction worker and eventually became a construction company operator during Alaska's territorial days. Following World War II, Hickel became heavily involved with real estate development, building residential subdivisions, shopping centers and hotels. Hickel entered politics in the 1950s during Alaska's battle for statehood and remained politically active for the rest of his life.
Kenneth Lee Salazar is an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Mexico. He previously served as the 50th United States Secretary of the Interior in the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously was a United States Senator from Colorado from 2005 to 2009. He and Mel Martínez (R-Florida) were the first Hispanic U.S. senators since 1977; they were joined by Bob Menendez in 2006. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, he served as Attorney General of Colorado from 1999 to 2005.
John Tony Salazar is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Colorado's 3rd congressional district from 2005 until 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed Commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture in the Cabinet of Governor John Hickenlooper in 2011, following his electoral defeat in 2010. Salazar announced his retirement as Agriculture Commissioner in November 2014.
Mark Peter Begich is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Alaska from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as mayor of Anchorage from 2003 to 2009.
The 2006 Alaska gubernatorial general election took place on November 7, 2006. The former mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin, defeated incumbent governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary, and then went on to defeat former governor Tony Knowles in the general election. Palin became the first governor of the state to be born after Alaskan statehood.
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, but ultimately ended up pleading no contest to campaign finance violations. 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.
Sean Randall Parnell is an American attorney and politician who was the tenth governor of Alaska from 2009 to 2014. He succeeded Sarah Palin in July 2009, and was elected governor in his own right in 2010 with 59.06% of the vote, as the largest percentage margin of any Alaska governor since statehood. In 2014, he narrowly lost his bid for re-election and returned to work in the private sector. He is a member of the Republican Party.
The Alaska Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in Alaska, headquartered in Anchorage.
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. Jim Sykes, founder of the Green Party of Alaska, ran on that party's ticket, but Desa Jacobsson later replaced him on the ballot.
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 2002 Alaska gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 2002, for the post of Governor of Alaska. Republican U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski defeated Democratic Lieutenant Governor Fran Ulmer. Murkowski became the first Republican elected governor of Alaska since Jay Hammond in 1978.
The 1994 Alaska gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 1994, for the post of Governor of Alaska, United States. Democratic candidate Tony Knowles narrowly defeated Republican candidate Jim Campbell and Lieutenant Governor Jack Coghill of the Alaskan Independence Party. In the Republican Revolution year of the 1994 elections, Alaska's was the only governor's seat in the country to switch from Republican to Democratic.
The 2004 United States Senate election in Alaska took place on November 2, 2004, alongside other elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives, various state and local elections, and the presidential election of that year. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Anchorage, sought election to her first full term after being appointed by her father Frank Murkowski to serve out the rest of the latter's unexpired term when he resigned in December 2002 to become Governor of Alaska. Her main challenger was Democratic former governor Tony Knowles, her father's predecessor as governor. Murkowski won by a slight margin. As of 2022, Senator Murkowski’s vote total of 149,773 votes remains the most raw votes she has ever received during any of her runs for the US Senate.
The 1990 Alaska gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 1990, for the open seat of Governor of Alaska. In 1989, incumbent Governor Steve Cowper, a Democrat, had announced that he would not seek re-election for a second term.
The name of the highest mountain in North America became a subject of dispute in 1975, when the Alaska Legislature asked the U.S. federal government to officially change its name from "Mount McKinley" to "Denali". The mountain had been unofficially named Mount McKinley in 1896 by a gold prospector, and officially by the federal government in 1917 to commemorate William McKinley, who was President of the United States from 1897 until his assassination in 1901.
Ryan Keith Zinke is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for Montana's 1st congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Zinke served in the Montana Senate from 2009 to 2013 and as the U.S. representative for the at-large congressional district from 2015 to 2017. He served as the United States secretary of the interior under president Donald Trump from 2017 until his resignation in 2019 following a series of ethical scandals.
Jane Arliss Sturgulewski was an American businesswoman and Republican politician from the U.S. state of Alaska. In a political career in which she started appearing in the spotlight in 1975, she represented Anchorage in the Alaska Senate from 1979 to 1993. Twice during off-years in re-election to her four-year Senate term, she won the Republican nomination for governor of Alaska against mostly conservative opposition in blanket primaries. The second time, in 1990, she came out in third place behind Walter Hickel and runner up Tony Knowles, which was the second of three times in Alaska's history a major-party nominee placed third. She won a 2000 Anchorage Athena award.
Jerry Ward is an American politician and businessman.
The 2022 Alaska gubernatorial election was held on Tuesday November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Alaska. Incumbent Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy won re-election to a second term, becoming the first Republican governor to be re-elected to a second term since Jay Hammond in 1978 and the first governor, regardless of political affiliation, to be re-elected to a second term since Tony Knowles in 1998.
