Normally, National Zero doesn't delve into the muck and mud of local politics, but a borough election deserves some attention when that borough is close to the size of New Jersey, the home of nearly 100,000 people, sits in the middle of Alaska, went to Trump by 15 percentage points in the last election, but flipped to a Democratic mayor after the final tally of last week's election, according to Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
Grier Hopkins, the son of a one-time mayor of Fairbanks North Star Borough, beat his Republican opponent by 154 votes out of 19,487 cast. A third-party candidate promising to find "endgame solutions" to make the isolated region home to the city of Fairbanks both energy- and food-independent during his three-year term took 705 votes.
Home to nearly 1 in 7 Alaskans, Fairbanks North Star Borough electing a Democrat who campaigned on encouraging development and raising taxes to fund public education and build new parks is notable less than a month before a national election, when every tea leaf is being examined with a microscope.