By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 1, 2026 – The Alaska Division of Elections has certified the candidate list for the Nov. 3 general election, with one major question still unresolved: whether the newly assembled Republican ticket of Candi English and Jodi Taylor will receive final certification later this week.
The Division’s official candidate list now shows three gubernatorial tickets as certified:
- Republicans Bernadette Wilson and Michael Shower
- Republican Dave Bronson and running mate Josh Church
- Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and nonpartisan running mate Zac Johnson
- English and Taylor, both Republicans, are listed as “pending.”
The Division has not announced precisely when it will make its certification decision on the English-Taylor ticket, although a decision is expected later this week.
The unusual situation arose after former Attorney General Treg Taylor, who had run for governor with English as his lieutenant governor candidate, was denied certification over deficiencies alleged by the Alaska Public Offices Commission in his public official financial disclosure.
Taylor had finished fifth in the Aug. 18 primary. But after second-place finisher Tom Begich withdrew and Taylor was disqualified, English, his running mate, moved into the fourth available position. English then selected Jodi Taylor, Treg Taylor’s wife, as her running mate. The two went to the Division of Elections to complete the paperwork necessary to form the replacement ticket on Monday, the final day.
The Division must now determine whether that newly constituted ticket satisfies the legal requirements for certification.
If English and Taylor are certified, the gubernatorial ballot will contain four tickets, per the ranked-choice voting scheme that the Alaska elections now use. Three tickets are headed by Republicans and one headed by a Democrat.
Kreiss-Tomkins and Johnson enter the general election as the Democratic ticket after Kreiss-Tomkins finished first in the primary. Begich, also a Democrat, finished second but later withdrew and endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins.
Wilson and Shower are the highest-finishing Republican ticket. Wilson placed third in the primary against 16 other candidates.
The certification list establishes which candidates are eligible to appear on the general election ballot. It does not mean that every certified candidate is actively campaigning.
The governor’s race is the only statewide contest on the newly posted list with a ticket still marked pending.
