Senator John Coghill is “in” for the 2020 election cycle: On Friday he filed for reelection to Senate Seat B, representing a wide swath of the Western Fairbanks and and North Pole.
Coghill has served in the Legislature since 1999, when he started his political career in the Alaska House. District B includes some of the more liberal University of Alaska Fairbanks neighborhoods, although it is generally considered a safe seat for a Republican.
Coghill is a social conservative whose decisions are firmly grounded in his Christian faith. Although he was the sponsor of Senate Bill 91, which many blame for a crime wave because of its lenient sentencing provisions, he ultimately voted for its overhaul and repeal when it came time to vote on House Bill 49, the “repeal and replace” bill.
A third-generation Alaskan, he was born in Fairbanks and raised in Nenana. During his first semester at UAF, he received his draft notice, and enlisted in the Air Force. After five years, he returned to Nenana to work with his family’s business, Nenana Fuel Co. He and his wife Luann are active in their church, and Coghill has served as a prison minister and as the pastor’s administrative assistant. He has taught adult Bible classes through his church and leads private prayer meetings while in Juneau.
District B leans right. In 2018, Gov. Michael Dunleavy won the district, 6,057 to Mark Begich’s 3,843 votes. During that same election, House District 3’s Tammie Wilson, a Republican, won with 92.14 percent of the vote, while House District 4 was taken by hard-left Democrat Grier Hopkins, with 51.74 percent of the vote, while Republican Jim Sackett pulled in 43.35 percent. A third candidate, Tim Lamkin, ran in that race, skimming 4.69 percent.
Back in 2016, President Trump did much better than Hillary Clinton in this district, with Trump winning 9,473 votes to Clinton’s 4,903.
But down ballot, Coghill was challenged by the former mayor Luke Hopkins, a Democrat and an acolyte of Gov. Bill Walker. The final vote on the 2016 General Election ballot was a strong 53 percent for Coghill, and 46 percent for Hopkins.
Coghill is Rules Committee chairman for the Senate Republican majority.
