Post‑election survey shows mixed voter reasons for rejecting Anchorage School District bond and levy

Everett, the project manager for the Alaska Research survey, told the Anchorage School District board the 2026 Spring Alaska omnibus survey asked Anchorage‑specific questions only of municipal voters and produced a subsample of 718 respondents (margin of error ±3.9% at the 95% confidence level).

“The Anchorage School District's questions were only asked to Anchorage adults and particularly a subset of Anchorage adults who had voted in the municipal election and there we had 718 of them,” Everett said, describing the text‑plus‑panel data collection and post‑survey weighting to Anchorage census and political demographics.

The presentation showed voters who identified as progressive or Democrat, lived downtown, were younger or college‑educated were more likely to support Proposition One (a bond) and Proposition Nine (a one‑time levy). By contrast, respondents who identified as conservative or Republican, lived in Eagle River/Chugiak or were older and less formally educated were more likely to vote no.

Survey items that correlated most strongly with voting no included agreement with the statements “ASD doesn't spend its money wisely” and support for more private school options like religious schools; respondents agreeing that “ASD schools are chronically underfunded” were more likely to have voted yes. Everett emphasized that one commonly expressed concern—“I'm struggling to pay my bills these days with the cost of living so high”—showed no statistically significant relationship with voting on the two propositions.

Everett and Ivan Moore also reported differences by household: 33% of the full Anchorage sample had one or more children in the household overall, while only 20% of the voter subsample had children enrolled in ASD. Households with ASD children were more likely to support spending some of any future legislative funding sooner and were more likely to say the district is chronically underfunded.

On a split‑sample question about how the district should use any additional legislative funds, most respondents preferred a combined approach—spending some now and some later—with a tilt toward reserving funds for fiscal 2028 rather than spending them immediately to reduce this year's cuts.

During board questions, Everett said he was surprised that respondents with children were more likely than the general population to agree that ASD should reduce expenses by consolidating; Ivan said it surprised him that household financial strain was not correlated with voting behavior.

The board received the report for information and was invited to submit follow‑up questions to the presenters. The presentation materials and data‑citations were included in the meeting packet for board review.