After years of constant scandal and fraught tensions with the Assembly, the 2023 Municipal election was widely seen as a referendum on Mayor Dave Bronson.
With most of the votes counted, Anchorage voters backed progressive and moderate candidates for Assembly by the largest margin since 2019. Those more aligned with the current Assembly swept every single seat except in blood-red Eagle River.
This election was the last time the city will vote on Assembly seats before Bronson faces re-election in 2024. With no Assembly seats up next spring, the ballot will feature the mayor’s race and three school board seats.
Since Bronson was elected in 2021, there have been two regular municipal elections, two recalls on incumbent progressives, and a special Assembly election. Of those contests, only a single Bronson-backed candidate in a competitive district has prevailed — Randy Sulte in 2022.
A new era of muni politics
This year, progressive and moderate candidates are prevailing by a historically large margin.
Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, municipal politics have become significantly more polarized. Previously, local races were much less predictable and highly dependent on candidate quality and kitchen-table city issues.
Now, Anchorage’s elections are “nonpartisan” in name only. The results are more likely to mirror the city’s vote for president and other partisan elections.
The peak of Anchorage’s polarization occurred in 2021. After voting for Biden by a margin of 2 points, Bronson flipped just a few thousand Biden voters and won the mayoral election by 1 point. The map closely mirrors the presidential vote, but a backlash to the city’s COVID policies spurred a conservative victory.
Exceeding expectations after redistricting
After muni district lines changed, it was expected that candidates would struggle in seats that had become more conservative. This was especially the case with Midtown and West, which both shifted rightward by 3-4 points in the 2021 Bronson vs Dunbar mayoral race. A few points in a competitive district is critical; in 2020, Midtown incumbent Felix Rivera won by just 179 votes.
Despite the new districts, Rivera and first-time candidate Anna Brawley on the Westside are winning their races by substantial margins.
Rivera is winning by the highest margin – 8.5 points – in Midtown since Elvi Gray-Jackson beat a then-unknown Dave Bronson in 2011 by 15 points.
Meanwhile, Brawley is winning by 13 points — 8 points better than Kameron Perez-Verdia’s re-election victory over Liz Vasquez in 2022.
Since Bronson was elected in 2021, muni elections have swung back to liberals and moderates. In 2023, they easily overperformed Biden and other moderate-to-left candidates in state-level elections. Whether we are headed back to an era of depolarized, relatively nonpartisan politics remains to be seen.
