Like the rest of the nation, Sitka was divided over who it wanted in the White House for the next four years. The town’s two precincts mirrored the rural/urban divide that favored the Republican nominee Donald Trump.
In Sitka Precinct No. 1, which encompasses the outskirts of town on either end of the road system, voters preferred Trump 630 to 587 over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Voters in Sitka Precinct No. 2, which is the downtown area and the surrounding neighborhoods, cast a majority of their ballots for Clinton over Trump, 671 to 514.
Third party candidates did garner some support in both parts of town, but overall with a higher turnout downtown, Clinton clinched 45 percent of Sitka’s votes to Trump’s 41 percent.
In the race for U.S. Senate, Sitka went the way of the state, with Republican Lisa Murkowski securing over twice as many votes as her Libertarian challenger Joe Miller.
The race for U.S. Congress was much closer in Sitka, with incumbent Don Young inching by with just 69 votes over Steve Lindbeck. Precinct No. 1 voted a majority for Young and Precinct No. 2 cast more for Lindbeck.
There was no divide, however, in the race for representative of House District 35 in Sitka. Incumbent Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins won both precincts by a few hundred votes. Overall, Sitkans cast 1,697 for Kreiss-Tomkins and 1,028 for challenger Sheila Finkenbinder. The 27-year old state representative says the results were humbling.
“I love my hometown. I love Sitka, I grew up here. I work really hard for this community and I’m so excited to keep trying to make it a better place.”
Kreiss-Tomkins received a majority of votes in nine of the 14 precincts in the district. Petersburg, a community that has recently fielded its own Republican candidate twice for the seat, voted more than 54 percent for Kreiss-Tomkins.
“I try to take a middle-of-the-road, collaborative approach and hopefully that appeals to everyone, to some degree, including Republicans, including more traditionally conservative constituencies. Perhaps the outcome in Petersburg is reflective of that.”
Kreiss-Tomkins says he spent the day after the election helping organize the bipartisan coalition in the House which he says he’s been working towards for the past four years. He says he plans to celebrate with a good night’s sleep.
