The special election for mayor, replacing former Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, is over and the results are coming in. The unofficial results as of Tuesday night are:
- Peter Micciche: 2,526
Linda Hutchings: 873
David Carey: 555
Zachary Hamilton: 242
Unresolved write-in: 807
Total votes cast: 5,004
These results are from 27 of 28 reported precincts. There are 54,212 voters in the borough, and, as of now, the turnout is about 9.23% for this special election, with 5,004 ballots cast.
With over 50% of the votes cast for Micciche, it appears there may not be a runoff, which would have been scheduled for March 7 if no candidate received a majority of the vote. However, there may be more ballots on the way, as the mailing deadline was Tuesday, Feb. 14. Every eligible voter in the borough was mailed a ballot.
Micciche is a longtime public servant on the Kenai. Most recently, he served from 2013 to 2023 in the Alaska State Senate, was Senate majority leader from 2017-2018 and then became Senate president, before retiring in January.
Micciche had previously served as mayor of Soldotna and on the Soldotna City Council. He earned an associate degree from Kenai Peninsula College and a bachelor’s in business management from Alaska Pacific University. For many years he was the manager of the Kenai LNG Facility for ConocoPhillips.
The special election may put Micciche in place until the regular election in October, when the seat was already scheduled to be on the ballot.
Drill down into the precinct data at this Kenai Borough Division of Elections link.
