Alaska’s most recent Democratic governor passes the mantle to a new generation of leadership

SITKA, ALASKA —  Tuesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former state representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins received the endorsement of former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles (D).

Throughout his decade in the state legislature, Kreiss-Tomkins showcased his ability to foster bipartisan cooperation, advocate for rural Alaska, and craft forward-thinking, practical solutions — qualities that distinguished Gov. Knowles’ eight-year tenure as Alaska’s chief executive. 

Gov. Knowles’ endorsement represents a generational change in Alaska, passing the mantle of forward-thinking, bipartisan leadership at a time when a majority of Alaskans feel our state is going in the wrong direction.

As the last Democrat to win the governorship, Gov. Knowles’ sole endorsement is also a vote of confidence that JKT is the only Democratic candidate who can win in November. JKT combines a record of electoral overperformance in a Trump-voting district — five election cycles of proven crossover appeal to independent and Republican voters — with a change message that is exciting the Democratic grassroots, drawing young Alaskans and new parents to campaign events, and breaking fundraising records.

In announcing the endorsement, Gov. Knowles said:

For the past eight years, Alaska has faced a barrage of challenges – an underfunded education system, loss of health care, fiscal instability, and an exodus of skilled workers and families from the state.  At the same time, the current administration failed to address these problems, much less move the state forward.  The land of opportunity we know and love seems lost in the shuffle.

While the decisions coming out of the Governor’s office in Juneau affect everyone, those most impacted are the current generation who will be living with the results long after many of us are gone.  That’s why I am endorsing Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for Governor.  He brings a fresh perspective to the office without forgetting his roots as a life-long Alaskan.  He represents a new generation of leadership grounded in his decade in the state legislature.  He has a track record of bringing people together and knows what it takes to get things done.

Take it from me, winning statewide elections is difficult, but JKT has what it takes to run a successful campaign by presenting a vision for Alaska that will bring lasting change to our state and provide opportunities for all of us.

“Tony and Susan Knowles have dedicated their lives to serving Alaska. Their confidence and trust in my vision for our state’s future means the world to me,” said Kreiss-Tomkins. “The lessons from his administration are more relevant than ever. We need that same commitment to fiscal responsibility and that same focus on all Alaskans.”

“Growing up in Sitka,” continued Kreiss-Tomkins, “ Governor Knowles was an iconic political figure. I remember first seeing him speak when I was a freshman at Sitka High School, when he came to Sitka for a campaign visit. He was a governor for all of Alaska, both rural and urban, and governed with integrity and grace. Tony and Susan are role models whose legacy I strive to live up to.”

Gov. Knowles’ endorsement adds to JKT’s growing momentum, including over 45 endorsements from elected leaders from Kodiak to Kotzebue and Anchorage to Sitka.

Former Iowa State Cyclones star Milan Momcilovic is the player everyone is keeping an eye on during deadline day for prospects to make their final decision about the 2026 NBA Draft.

Will the sharpshooting forward keep his name in the player pool or withdraw to maintain his eligibility to play college basketball? Indications are leaning toward the latter, with NBA executives unanimously voting that he should return to school.

Which school would he be returning to? That is something that will have to be figured out because Momcilovic is currently in the transfer portal, as his focus has been entirely on the NBA draft and turning pro the last few weeks.

Recently, it was reported that the Arizona Wildcats were an emerging suitor for him. It looks as if they are going to have a void in their lineup at one of the forward spots with Koa Peat expected to remain in the NBA draft.

Is Arizona truly in the running for Milan Momcilovic?

However, that may have been more smoke and mirrors than their reported interest. As shared by Tristian Pharis of KY Insider and A Sea of Blue during an appearance on ESPN Radio Lexington, Arizona isn’t a team he has really heard connected to Momcilovic.

“I haven’t really heard Arizona. Most of the time it’s just the agent doing their job spreading rumors,” Pharis said, via their account on X.

Jeff Goodman of The Field of 68, who shared the Momcilovic and Wildcats connection, responded to the post saying, “It wasn’t the agent who gave me the info.”

It will certainly be something worth keeping an eye on because the former Iowa State star is the No. 1-ranked player in the transfer portal. Any team that lands him is going to have its 2026-27 season outlook changed drastically, and in a good way.

There may be some flaws in his skill set, which he is aware of, that made NBA teams hesitant to want to select him in the 2026 NBA Draft. But his 3-point shooting is a truly elite skill that will improve any program he elects to join.

The Kentucky Wildcats have been viewed as the favorites to land him. The St. John’s Red Storm and Louisville Cardinals have been mentioned as possible suitors as well before Arizona came into the mix.

Whoever lands a commitment from Momcilovic is going to be paying a pretty penny. Reportedly, he could command $7 million in the transfer portal.

This past season, AJ Dybantsa of the BYU Cougars had the highest NIL valuation, somewhere between $4.1 million and $4.4 million. There were reports that some of the top big men on the market this year could get upwards of $5 million, which makes the reported $7 million number for Momcilovic truly shocking.

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By Rachel Jonas and Robert Fagnani, Special for CalMatters

This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Guest Commentary written by

We were supposed to celebrate our younger son’s first birthday in our backyard on January 11th, 2025. Instead, four days before his party, we watched the Palisades fire take our home. We’d packed what we could, put our kids in the car and drove to Tennessee to live with family because we had nowhere else to go.

Our house is gone. Our older son’s preschool is gone. The library, the restaurants, the small routines that made up a life are all gone. What remains is a mortgage on a property that no longer exists and a rebuilding process that every expert we’ve spoken to says will take two to four years, minimum.

We did not expect to become advocates. But in the months after the fire, we kept running into the same impossible questions from other families — questions about forbearance, credit and what their mortgage servicer was actually required to do. Nobody had clear answers, so we founded Disaster Mortgage Relief and have spent the past year listening to hundreds of families across the Palisades and Altadena navigate a financial system that was simply not built for what we are living through.

That experience is what brings us to Assembly Bill 1847. The California Bankers Association recently argued that this bill — which would extend and strengthen mortgage protections established under last year’s fire emergency mortgage relief law, AB 238 — could end up restricting access to credit. 

We want to engage with that, because we think it gets the situation almost entirely backwards.

AB 238 gave people whose homes burned up to 12 months of mortgage forbearance. But the rebuilding timeline in the Palisades and Altadena is not 12 months. Debris removal, utility restoration, insurance disputes, permit approvals, contractor shortages and construction inflation have made this a multi-year process for virtually everyone we work with. 

The original forbearance framework was built around a recovery timeline that does not exist in reality. Now that fire survivors’ forbearance periods are expiring, we are watching the consequences in real time: Families who were current on their mortgages before the January 2025 fire — who followed every rule — are seeing their credit scores fall by 200, 300, even 400 points. 

Some are being pushed toward foreclosure. Some are being handed balloon payments of $100,000 or more, due at the exact moment they are trying to finance construction.

This is not a story about irresponsible borrowers. These are teachers, small business owners, young families who made these neighborhoods what they were. Most still desperately want to come home. But the financial pressure is forcing many of them out for good.

We understand lenders need predictable rules and functioning credit markets. California cannot solve one crisis by creating another. But the greater threat to future lending is not temporary forbearance; it is mass borrower failure, collapsing credit, abandoned rebuilds and neighborhoods that never recover.

AB 1847 does not forgive debt. It does not eliminate lender rights. It does not tell banks they won’t be repaid. It allows payments to be deferred during rebuilding and moved to the loan’s back end. 

The CARES Act, which gave borrowers of federally-backed mortgages up to 360 days’ relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrated that similar structures were operationally feasible on a national scale. 

For many families, freeing up two or three years of principal and interest and applying that money to construction is the difference between rebuilding and permanently leaving. It requires no taxpayer money; it simply restructures debt that already exists so families have a realistic chance to come home.

In our case, my family is still in Tennessee, saving every dime we can to hopefully afford to rebuild the home we lost.

Climate events are no longer temporary and localized. They destroy entire communities at once and displace families for years. The financial infrastructure around homeownership needs to catch up to that reality.

The question before California is simple: when disaster survivors are trapped between a destroyed home and a mortgage system that no longer matches modern recovery, will we force families into financial collapse or adapt the system to the world we now live in?

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.