Rep. Mike Cronk has company in the Senate Seat R race. Democrat Savannah Fletcher, a member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and already a candidate for Fairbanks borough mayor, has filed for the seat being vacated by Sen. Click Bishop, who appears to be preparing for a run for governor in the next cycle. She is dropping out of the mayor’s race.
Fletcher is on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and is a civil rights attorney. She is a hard-left politician but is officially unaffiliated with any party.
Currently, there are more Republicans than Democrats in the Alaska Senate, but Bishop and other soft Republican senators have put the Democrats in the majority; Fletcher would continue to award power to the minority party.
Fletcher says that as an attorney she has represented all of the tribes in the Senate district.
“I will no longer be running to serve as Mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough. I am proud of my work for the Borough and will bring my knowledge of local government and municipal issues into my work at the State level. I will serve in the Senate with the same passion and hard work that I have brought to my Borough service,” she said.
Making it official on Thursday was Rep. Mike Cronk, who was first to announce he would run for Senate Seat R, when Bishop announced his retirement. Cronk is from the Tok-Northway portion of the district, which is the largest Senate district geographically in the state, covering much of the Interior of Alaska.
