Joey Sweet will become a temporary seat-filler on the Anchorage Assembly, after the votes were counted today to replace former Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar, who won a seat for Alaska Senate.
Five people applied for the position. On the first round of voting, the breakdown of votes by members of the Assembly:
- Joey Sweet: 5
- Hilary Morgan: 2
- Harry Crawford: 2
- Jim Wojciehowski: 1
- Rich Foehner: 0
Wojciehowski and Foehner were eliminated and the Municipal Clerk and her staff then huddled and tabulated the final results using ranked choice voting.
After an explanation of the exceedingly complicated elimination process that was dictated by municipal code, the finalists were:
- Joey Sweet: 6
- Harry Crawford: 4
Ballots were redistributed to the Assembly with those two names, and with a binary choice in front of them — one of them an old guard from the Democrat Party and one a young turk in the same vein, the final vote was:
- Joey Sweet: 7
- Harry Crawford: 3
Crawford, the longtime legislator and water-carrier for Democrats was out.
Sweet was raised in Wasilla and graduated from the Mat-Su Career and Technical High School. He enrolled at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and studied political science, and then transferred to the University of Alaska Anchorage to complete his studies.
Sweet is a former student regent on the University of Alaska Board of Regents, appointed by former Gov. Bill Walker. He was an intern for the Alaska Democrats and worked at the Alaska Center for the Environment; he sold products at the Apple store and attended at University of Alaska Fairbanks. He earned an MPA from the University of Alaska Anchorage and graduated in 2021. His LinkedIn profile lists his pronouns as he/him.
Sweet, who lives in UAA campus housing, will serve until April 25 for the District 5, Seat H neighborhoods in East Anchorage.
At the end of the meeting in which he was elected by the Assembly, who are now his equals, Sweet was seated on the dais in Assemblywoman Jamie Allard’s seat, rather than Forrest Dunbar’s seat. Allard was not at the meeting, although she is on the Assembly until Jan. 17.
Sweet thanked the Assembly and said he plans to make it a full-time job and will take the job seriously.
Assemblyman Chris Constant noted that Friday is Jan. 6 and he hopes everyone “will get passed all these fake arguments about fraudulent elections. My spirit feels bigger today that we had an election here and it’s done.” Assemblyman Felix Rivera noted how nice it was that ranked choice worked, and it was to have a young person on the Assembly.
Like Assemblyman Rivera, Sweet is starting out in elected government early in his life. Rivera moved to Alaska from Texas and worked for Mayor Ethan Berkowitz as an intern, and then ran for Assembly when he was 24 years old. The seat will be on April 4 ballot, when voters will choose who will represent them through the end of Dunbar’s term, which ends in April of 2025.
