The municipal election polling locations closed around the Kenai Peninsula at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday and initial unofficial results indicate that the incumbents have taken a strong lead in the municipal election races. Most incumbents were not only reelected across the Central Kenai Peninsula, but they received sizeable support from the community wanting them to continue in their position.
The incumbents who saw strong outings on Tuesday include all three Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly races – District 3 Nikiski, held by Jesse Bjorkman, District 4 Soldotna, held by Tyson Cox and District 7 Central, Brent Johnson running unopposed. Both of Soldotna City Council’s incumbents in Dave Carey and Lisa Parker received sizeable support from Soldotna voters as has City of Kenai Mayor Brian Gabriel.
Bjorkman told KSRM, “I’d like to thank the community of Nikiski for their support and trust in sending me back to the borough assembly to represent them. I certainly am pleased with the results that we saw last night. 60% of the result in favor of my candidacy is a great margin to see compared to 30 from my closest competitor. Those results are positive. We certainly have a lot of work to do on the assembly.”
Cox said, “First off, I want to unofficially thank everyone who supported me. It was over 60% which is a good number for support thus far. You know, I definitely looked at the race just like I would have any other race as I didn’t feel that was the outcome all through. I, of course, wanted to be strong and realized that we did have the support going in, but I always take it as there is definitely the possibility that it could go a different direction. So, we’ve put up a good one.”
Gabriel said, “Well, obviously we’re pretty happy. I had a lot of support, which was certainly helped out. You saw, even with the sign waiving yesterday all day, with the pretty tiring conditions with it being wet and windy and such, but it was a lot of fun, a lot of good attitude and positiveness which I like to see. I’m pretty happy with the way it went, and I just wanted to do a shoutout to all of my supporters and all the well wishes that I’ve been getting this morning.”
The results of the Borough elections are set to be certified on Tuesday, October 11. The City elections will be certified later this month.
Click here for the latest election results.