In April, Anchorage voters will determine the new makeup of the city’s legislative body, the Anchorage Assembly. The election could reshape the body’s majority due to the seven seats on the ballot, but also because it is the first election following a redistricting process finalized in May which changed the makeup of the electorate for each seat, making some progressive districts more conservative and vice versa.
The maps were drawn through the reapportionment process, which was triggered after voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative adding a 12th member to the Assembly in 2020.
The new map was first submitted by Denny Wells and former South side Assemblyman John Weddleton, and was amended by Robert Hockema and Downtown Assemblyman Chris Constant.
Our “Meet The Maps” series will delve into each new district, starting with the one that changes the most: the west side’s district. This piece will look at how the changes affect the district’s boundaries, demographics, and partisanship.
The new district is much less reliably Democratic. However, it’s still very difficult for a bonafide conservative to be able to win this seat, even though Republicans have more power to make it competitive now.
BOUNDARIES
Here’s a map showing how West’s district changed between the map used in the 2010’s and the one that will be used in April:
- Cuts 8,500 people from Spenard and 2,600 from Arctic (green). Both now belong to the new North Anchorage and Midtown district.
- Adds 7,000 people from Bayshore/Klatt, and nearly 2,000 mainly from the Dimond Estates Mobile Home Park off Dimond (blue).
- The communities of Turnagain, Sand Lake, Jewel Lake, Kincaid, and Spenard west of Minnesota Dr were carried over into the new West district (red).
DEMOGRAPHICS
The loss of much of Spenard means West’s new district is slightly whiter, with every non-white demographic dropping except Alaska Native peoples.
PARTISANSHIP
West’s new district traded out a lot of diverse, working class neighborhoods that vote mostly Democratic for whiter, middle- to high-income communities that strongly lean Republican. In particular, it adds a portion of Bayshore, Southport, and Klatt.
The mobile home park in Dimond Estates is extremely diverse and working class too, but due to chronically low voter turnout, Bayshore/Klatt voters punch above their weight and make the district more conservative than expected.
Here’s how the changes to the district affect the partisanship of West’s new district compared to the old one:
West’s new district will be used for Anchorage nonpartisan municipal elections, but heightened polarization during the pandemic have put more emphasis on the political ideology of Assembly members and pushed municipal politics into more divisive territory. Voters in municipal elections are increasingly behaving more like they do in presidential and other statewide elections.
The new district will be tested during the upcoming municipal election on April 4. Community planner and Turnagain Community Council President Anna Brawley has filed a letter of intention with APOC. Brian Flynn, a real estate broker from the Klatt area and member of the far-right Facebook group Save Anchorage, has also filed.
