Murkowski maintains healthy lead over Ulmer in race for governor
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Republican Frank Murkowski was on his way to victory Tuesday in his bid to be Alaska's next governor in a race that had been expected to be very close.
Murkowski, 69, has served as Alaska's junior senator for 22 years and is seeking to be the first Republican governor elected since 1978. If he wins, Murkowski would appoint his own successor to the two-year unexpired senate term.
He faced a spirited challenge from Democrat Fran Ulmer, who has served as lieutenant governor for the past 8 years. Ulmer was vying to be the first female elected governor in Alaska and had never lost an election before Tuesday.
With about 60 percent of the precincts reporting late Tuesday, Murkowski was enjoying a 3-2 lead over the Democrat Ulmer. As the state Division of Elections posted election returns at a gathering in the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage, Ulmer braced for defeat.
"The numbers look like Senator Murkowski has won. But I feel as though we've won in some important ways in making the issues education, economic development and solving the fiscal gap," Ulmer said at a gathering of supporters at the Sullivan Arena.
Murkowski, who has turned down past pleas to run as the Republican candidate, was heavily favored in this race. Despite holding statewide office, Ulmer was unknown to a fourth of the state in early polls.
With Murkowski in Washington on Senate business during key weeks of the campaign and tireless campaigning, Ulmer managed to close the gap.
The two candidates sparred on many issues, but the constant theme was Alaska's budget problems. Murkowski, whose made a career in Washington, D.C., out of promoting growth in the state's natural resources, made that theme central to his plan to dig Alaska out of the fiscal doldrums.
Alaska relies on oil for about 80 percent of its revenues and as North Slope fields age and production declines the state coffers are often short. The state's $2.1 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve is expected to be drained within the next governor's first term.
While Ulmer pledged to tackle the budget problem by moving away from the state's reliance on oil, Murkowski took the opposite approach.
Murkowski pledged to implement incentives and streamline the state's administrative functions to spur a 3 percent increase in oil production annually by 2005.
Amid dire predictions by Democrats who warned that the state's Permanent Fund Dividend program was threatened without a plan to increase revenues, Murkowski said more belt-tightening was needed.
Ulmer proposed a "parachute plan" that automatically triggers new taxes when the state's reserve falls below $1 billion. Alaska, which hasn't paid a statewide income tax since 1980, is largely anti-tax and that message was resonating at the polls.
The Democrat candidate enlisted the support of former Gov. Jay Hammond, a popular Republican seen by many as the father of the state's permanent fund program, to win supporters.
Hammond went on the campaign trail and cut television spots that warned that Murkowski's approach threatened dividends paid to eligible Alaskans.
Murkowski countered that Ulmer, a former Democrat lawmaker from Juneau, sponsored two measures to use permanent fund earnings for state government. In the final weeks, the debate centered around which candidate was more of a threat to the popular dividend program.
Alaska ranks second in domestic oil production which the state counts on for up to 80 percent of its revenues and the trans-Alaskan oil pipeline pumps 16 percent of the nation's oil.
But as North Slope fields mature, oil flowing through the pipeline has been on the decline, dipping to about 1 million barrels per day. That is half of the pipeline's peak amount in 1988.
Murkowski's superlative-laden campaign struck a chord with many Alaskans who muse about past years when oil, mining and timber were at their peak.
Murkowski said he would propose incentives and administrative streamlining to increase oil production in the state by 3 percent a year starting in 2005.
Murkowski also vowed to bring North Slope natural gas to market by 2010, despite uncertainty about whether gasline incentives would emerge from an energy bill stalled in Congress.
Ulmer, 55, has served as Alaska's lieutenant governor for nearly 8 years. Ulmer served four terms in the state House as a Democrat from Juneau after serving a term as mayor.
The other candidates were Libertarian Billy Toien, Green Party candidate Diane Benson, Raymond Vinzant Sr. of the Republican Moderate Party and Alaskan Independence candidate Don Wright.