"Fran Ulmer is the best candidate for Alaska's working families," said Mano Frey, executive president of the Alaska AFL-CIO. "She has a long record of working on issues that benefit working families and she'll make sure Alaska's economic development benefits Alaska families."

The state chapter has 60,000 members in 62 unions, including the Alaska State Employees Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, both of which already had endorsed Ulmer.

The AFL-CIO's support of Ulmer was based in part on her support for an increase in the minimum wage.

Ulmer has lost a couple of union endorsements to Republican Frank Murkowski, a U.S. senator for 22 years.

The Teamsters and the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association have backed Murkowski. MEBA had never endorsed a Republican candidate for governor before.

Murkowski said he wasn't surprised that the AFL-CIO didn't endorse him, as the organization "is strongly weighted toward unions who have traditionally endorsed Democratic politicians." But a couple of local unions within AFL-CIO have endorsed Murkowski.