Soldotna’s Gary Knopp will join mainly incumbents in the state house when he takes over the District 30 seat.
He says he’s interested in being a member of the Finance committee.
Knopp: “I think that there’s a solution to getting to this balanced budget, or relatively close to the balanced budget, through a combination of reduced spending in the operating budget as we talked about and probably something similar to SB 128, the use of Permanent Fund Earnings Reserves. I’ve said all along these are things that need to happen before we them with a bunch of new taxes.”
Knopp garnered a higher percentage of support than his three competitors from voters in Soldotna: 65 percent compared to the 61 percent of Kenai voters who backed him.
Democratic candidate Shauna Thornton is the runner up for House District 30 seat, garnering 26 percent of Kenai’s votes and 2o percent of Soldotna’s.
House Democrats statewide in gained seats in the race, but not enough for a majority.
The two other House District 30 candidates, non-partisan Daniel Lynch and Alaska Constitution Party J.R. Meyers, garnered 5.83 and 5.80 percent of votes respectively from the district.
The election will be certified by November 29.