Alaska Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon will run for open state Senate seat

The leader of the coalition majority in the Alaska House of Representatives will leave his seat and run for state Senate.

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, filed as a candidate with the Alaska Division of Elections for the Senate seat covering Southwest Alaska. 

Edgmon said he decided to run “with some encouragement and the realization that the timing was now or never.”

The incumbent, Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, is retiring and not seeking election. Hoffman, who has been in office since 1987, is the longest-serving state legislator in Alaska history. 

Three other certified candidates have signed up for the Senate race: Republican Darren Deacon of Kalskag, Democratic candidate Wassilie Guy of Napaskiak and nonpartisan Richard Robb of Bethel.

Undeclared candidate Wayne Morgan of Aniak has applied to run, and his application is pending.

Edgmon is the most senior member of the Alaska House, having served in the body for more than 20 years. He doesn’t see a Senate election as a given.

“It’s going to take a lot of hard physical labor, of going community to community,” he said. “It’s going to just take a lot of campaigning.”

Edgmon said he sees rising costs as the biggest issue in the district: fuel costs, groceries, transportation and everything else.

This month, a fuel barge arrived in Dillingham, delivering gasoline priced at more than $9 per gallon at the pump.

“We’ve never seen that before, ever, and that’s absolutely alarming, because if you take those fuel costs and you project it to the cost of marine fuel, of aviation fuel, everything else that we’re so dependent on out there — for all our goods and services, it’s bordering on the apocalyptic,” he said.

Other members of the House coalition are planning to depart as well. House Rules Chair Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, who is retiring.

Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage and co-chair of the House Finance Committee, is retiring.

Despite those departures, Edgmon said he thinks the coalition has “an excellent chance to continue.”

Democratic candidate Evelynn Trefon of Iliamna has registered to run for Edgmon’s state House seat. Nonpartisan candidate Mark Smith of Aleknagik has also registered; his application is pending approval.