Alaska’s 2026 race for governor presents voters with more than a choice among candidates. It also requires voters to understand the system by which their choices will ultimately be counted. Currently, ranked-choice voting is the law. Conservatives must be aware, and smart, about each race on the ballot. The governor race can be won by right-leaning voters if we all rank the three conservatives. Ballot exhaustion is the enemy.
Dave Bronson, Treg Taylor, and Bernadette Wilson each bring different backgrounds and qualifications to the race. For voters examining executive experience in particular, Bronson’s record provides a significant point of comparison and places him at the top of the three candidates. I support Dave because he has a true public-servant heart and can take in information quickly and make solid decisions based on facts.
Bronson served as mayor of Anchorage from 2021 through 2024. Anchorage is Alaska’s largest municipality, and the mayor is responsible for a substantial government operation. According to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Bronson’s mayoral responsibilities included managing a workforce of nearly 3,000 employees and a budget exceeding $600 million.
His tenure also placed him in the middle of some of Anchorage’s most contentious public-policy battles. He was battling a hard-left Assembly. The aftermath of COVID-era restrictions, municipal spending, homelessness, relations with the Anchorage Assembly, and disputes over executive authority all required consequential decisions from the mayor’s office. He protected the office of the mayor by winning key court battles.
Voters must consider the three candidates’ life experience and ability to “herd cats,” as we say in the oil patch. What cannot be disputed is that Bronson has already occupied an executive office in which decisions had immediate consequences for Alaska’s largest city.
His executive résumé did not end when he left City Hall.
In January 2025, Bronson was appointed manager of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. The airport is not simply another state facility. It is a major component of Alaska’s transportation infrastructure and an internationally important cargo hub. That position complements Bronson’s decades of aviation experience. His background includes service as a B-52 pilot in the United States Air Force, service in the Alaska Air National Guard, work as a maintenance officer and C-130 pilot, and many years flying commercially.
That gives voters a straightforward question to consider when comparing the candidates: How much weight should prior responsibility for large organizations, employees, budgets, and critical infrastructure carry when selecting Alaska’s next chief executive?
The other issue voters cannot ignore: how their ballot works
Whatever voters conclude about Bronson, Taylor, and Wilson, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system creates another consideration.
Under Alaska’s current system, voters may rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives the required majority initially, the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated and ballots cast for that candidate can transfer to the next continuing candidate ranked by those voters. That makes later rankings extremely consequential.
While a voter is not required to rank every candidate, a ballot containing only a first-choice counts for that candidate only as long as that candidate remains in the race. No one candidate will have 50 percent plus one in the first round. If we do not all rank three, ballot exhaustion will tip the scales to install a hard leftist.
What happens if you bullet-vote for governor, or only rank two? If your choice is eliminated in the first round, or second round, and you did not rank 1, 2, 3, your ballot becomes inactive, commonly described as an exhausted ballot. By contrast, when a voter ranks all three candidates, that ballot can continue to participate in later rounds if an earlier choice is eliminated.
That does not mean voters should rank candidates they do not support. It means voters should understand what leaving later rankings blank can do.
Executive experience is a legitimate distinction
Alaskans therefore face two separate decisions.
The first is substantive: Which candidate’s experience, record, policies, and judgment best match what they want from the next governor?
The second is procedural: How much of their preference should they express on a ranked-choice ballot? It is important to rank all three in this race for governor.
Bronson’s record gives voters concrete evidence on the first question. He has served as chief executive of Alaska’s largest city. He subsequently managed Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Before either position, he accumulated decades of military and commercial aviation experience.
Taylor and Wilson offer their own records and arguments, and voters should examine those as well.
But the comparison should be based on actual records rather than slogans. For voters who place particular importance on prior executive responsibility, Bronson’s experience as mayor and airport manager is a relevant and measurable distinction, placing him head and shoulders above the crowd.
The closing point
Ranked-choice voting makes one principle especially important to understand: your first choice expresses whom you want most; your later choices determine whether your ballot can continue speaking if your preferred candidate is eliminated.
Ranking additional candidates does not take a vote away from a first choice. A second choice is considered only after the first choice is eliminated, and subsequent choices operate the same way.
All three campaigns are promoting themselves first, but then they all say vote conservative 1, 2, 3.
Choose your first choice on the candidates’ records. Use the remaining rankings deliberately. In ranked-choice voting, an informed voter is one who understands both the candidates and the counting system. Get out and vote. The Republic can be saved. God bless Alaska.
