The 1998 Alaska gubernatorial general election took place on November 3, 1998. The election resulted in a landslide for the Democratic incumbent, Tony Knowles, who had won the 1994 gubernatorial election by only 536 votes.[1][2] Jim Sykes, founder of the Green Party of Alaska, ran on that party's ticket, but Desa Jacobsson later replaced him on the ballot.
Knowles was the first incumbent governor to attain re-election since 1978 and the last until 2022.[3] As of 2023[update], this was the last time a Democrat was elected Governor of Alaska.
On the Republican side, three major candidates jockeyed for the nomination: businessman John Howard Lindauer, state senator Robin L. Taylor, and Wayne A. Ross. Lindauer won the open primary election, with Taylor coming in second. Ray Metcalfe, a defecting Republican who had founded the Republican Moderate Party of Alaska, also ran.
Lindauer's campaign faltered late into the race as a result of his failure to disclose that his wife, a wealthy Chicago lawyer, had financed the bulk of his campaign.[3] As a result of this revelation, the Republicans withdrew their support of Lindauer[2] and backed Robin Taylor, the runner-up of the Republican primary, as a write-in candidate. Due to the lateness of this change, the Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a court order to delay the election.[5] The collapse of Lindauer's campaign resulted in a three-way split of the Republican vote between him, Taylor, and the Republican Moderate Metcalfe.
Knowles defeated Taylor, his closest opponent, by 33%, the widest margin of victory for a gubernatorial candidate in Alaska history. Moreover, if Taylor's and Lindauer's totals are added together, Knowles defeated the two Republicans combined by 16% – still the widest margin in Alaska history until 2010. This was also the first time since 1970 that any candidate won an outright majority of the vote in an Alaska gubernatorial election.
^Since the vast majority of the write-in votes were towards Republican Robin L. Taylor, he likely won the Ketchikan district. However, the original election report does not separate the write-in votes by candidate, so it cannot be known for sure.
