At the night’s final counts, Davies, who served 10 years in the state House, took 53 percent of the vote. Blanchard had 25 percent of the vote. Bennett had 21 percent of the vote.
“I feel really good about it,” he said after a long night of watching his tallies slowly rise. “I won over 50 percent showing that it wasn’t just a fluke. It was a pretty resounding victory.”
Davies served one term on the Assembly in 1989 before moving onto five consecutive terms as a state legislator. He made an unsuccessful bid in 2002 for state Senate, ending his political run until this campaign.
With good name recognition and plenty of support, Davies well outpaced his opponents in terms of fundraising and campaigning. As of the last available financial reports, Davies had raked in more than $35,000, more than double the combined total of his opponents.
But that fundraising has also been a source of criticism for Davies because unions gave a sizable portion of his campaign funds. Davies contends that it won’t affect his interactions with the unions; he supported them before they gave him a dollar.
“It’s not going to affect anything,” he said. “I got that money because that’s already how I think.”
He added that he sees that a number of recent union-related actions by the assembly came off as underhanded and said he wants to work to return to fair dealings with unions.
Davies will also play a key role in upcoming discussions on air quality because he studied energy and air quality during six years at the Fairbanks-based Cold Climate Housing Research Center.
On the news of the failure of the air quality ballot measure, Proposition 2, Davies felt that it sent a message to the borough.
“My sense is what people said is there is a problem, but this wasn’t the right solution,” he said. “We’ll need to figure out what we can do, but we have a consensus to fix it.”
As far as re-entering the political realm, the 66-year-old father of four grown children said he’s looking forward to working with the assembly even though it comes at a time when he was easing into retirement with his wife, Linda.
“My wife deserves a lot of credit because she picks up the slack when I’m off doing these things,” he said. “I’m up for the challenge.”
Contact staff writer Matt Buxton at 459-7544.
"My name is Neil Abercrombie. I'm a card carrying liberal and a tool of organized labor."
Davies' comments reminded me of that.
That's an interesting story, AKseahawk. Is there substance to it?
It's a shame the news miner and fairbanks in general has nobody that actually investigates things and provides information to the public. Maybe one of the reason corruption and shady deals continue to flourish is the lack of real journalism in this state.