President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, at the Menard Center in Wasilla. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
In a surprise announcement Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he is endorsing Republican Alaska gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson in the four-way race to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Polls indicate Wilson and two other Republicans — Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor — are trailing the lone Democratic candidate, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
In a rally at Wasilla’s Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center, Trump offered his support for Wilson, urged Alaskans to vote for a ballot measure repealing Alaska’s current elections system and encouraged votes for incumbent Republicans U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III.
Tuesday’s rally made Trump just the third American president to visit the Matanuska-Susitna region and was part of a nationwide campaign by the President, who was in Ohio on Monday. He’s expected to be in Nevada and Arizona on Wednesday, with other stops in Montana and Georgia this week.
In 90 minutes of rambling remarks, the President made his goal clear: He wants to motivate Republicans to turn out at the midterms and vote.
“Pretend that I’m on the ballot because here’s what happens. Every time I’ve been on the ballot, we win,” he said.
Nationally, polling indicates that Republicans are trailing in key elections that may determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.
Polls indicate Begich is ahead of Democratic Party-backed independent Bill Hill in a four-way race that also includes imprisoned Democrat Eric Hafner and Libertarian Jim McDermott.
Sullivan, meanwhile, is in a tight race against Democratic challenger Mary Peltola in a four-way election that also includes Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg and Republican candidate Gerald Heikes. Polling indicates Peltola holds a small lead.
It isn’t clear how much Trump’s visit will affect those races.
In a representative statewide survey of registered voters conducted Oct. 1-3, Alaska Survey Research found 58% of respondents had a negative view of Trump.
“We’ve asked this exact question maybe 50 times on surveys dating back to 2015. This is the worst rating we’ve ever recorded,” said company director Ivan Moore on social media. “58% is an all-time high negative.”
But among voters in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the site of Tuesday’s rally, Trump had a positive rating, with 44% of voters approving and 43% disapproving.
“You are here in the heart of Republican Alaska,” Sullivan told the President.
Trump landed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Tuesday afternoon before taking a helicopter to Wasilla’s airport and a car to the nearby Menard Center. He was met by a cheering crowd that filled the Menard Center’s seats before returning to his helicopter and an eventual flight to Las Vegas.
The Menard Center has a capacity of about 3,500 people, and the Mat-Su Sentinel reported that some potential attendees were turned away at the door for lack of space.
Trump was interrupted about 10 minutes into his remarks by a protester who was rapidly rushed out of the rally by security.
Away from the Menard Center, Trump opponents held protests and Democrats organized counterprogramming away from the Republican-focused event inside. Other events took place Tuesday morning in Anchorage.
Trump backs Wilson in crowded gubernatorial race
Of Alaska’s four candidates for governor, three were present in Wasilla on Tuesday.
Democratic candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins was in Fairbanks, attending a forum hosted by the local chamber of commerce.
Before the rally, Republican gubernatorial candidates Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor each said they didn’t expect Trump to make an endorsement.
But about one hour before he took the stage, Trump took to social media and endorsed the leading Republican in the primary election, Bernadette Wilson.
Trump called Bronson and Taylor “lesser candidates” and said Bronson begged Trump for an endorsement.
“I wouldn’t do it because he didn’t win the Primary and, therefore, wasn’t deserving of it. I then asked him to get out of the Race, and he agreed! … He agreed to get out, but three days later, without notification, quickly jumped back in, along with a third ‘Republican’ Candidate, who I never heard of, named Treg Taylor,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Afterward, Bronson said, “My recollection is different than the president’s of that meeting.”
Bronson said that when he spoke to Trump, he agreed to leave the governor race if Treg Taylor did so but warned Trump that if both left the race, they would simply be replaced by other Republicans.
Taylor never withdrew, “so there was no deal,” Bronson said.
On stage in Wasilla, Trump said that “now is the time for all Republicans to unite behind Bernadette” and wished her luck.
“It ain’t gonna be easy, Bernadette,” he said.
Trump’s endorsement came hours after the Cook Political Report, one of the nation’s top election prognosticators, said Alaska’s race for governor now leans Democratic, in large part because the Republican vote is being split among three candidates.
Alaska uses ranked choice voting in general elections, which could eliminate vote-splitting, but election results since 2022 have shown that Republican voters are much less likely to rank multiple candidates than independents and Democrats are.
Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican who is term-limited and cannot run again this year, spoke at the rally about three hours before Trump took the stage.
“The only way we’re going to win is if we all vote for the Republican candidates for governor, and that’s very important,” Dunleavy said.
Bronson and Taylor have urged Republicans to rank all three candidates, but Trump spoke against that appeal, calling ranked choice voting a “scam.”
In a text message, Kreiss-Tomkins’ campaign said the President is in Alaska “because national Republicans know that we’re neck-and-neck in this race, and electing a Democratic governor for the first time in a generation would send shockwaves across the country.”
Alaska hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since Tony Knowles, in 1994 and 1998.
As she left the Menard Center, Wilson said she was thrilled by the endorsement.
“I think it signals, you know, a lot of excitement on our side, a lot of momentum on our side. You’re seeing everyone come together. They’re unifying behind us. We could not be more excited,” she said.
Trump offers warnings about a Democratic Congress
Speaking in support of Sullivan and Begich, Trump insulted their leading opponents and the Democratic Party, and he predicted dire consequences for Alaska if Democrats win control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.
“Alaska is a special place to be, a very important place to be. And nobody’s done more for Alaska than Donald J. Trump,” he said. “With your support, just 21 days from now, Alaska is going to defeat the radical left Democrats.”
Later in his remarks, Trump said, “If the Democrats win, we will have a 1929-style economic depression. And I don’t like saying it, but they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”
A relative handful of the seats in the U.S. House and Senate are considered competitive, and Alaska’s two federal races fall into that category, even though Republican presidents have won Alaska each election since 1964.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, recruited Peltola to run against Sullivan and has said that her victory would be a step toward becoming Majority Leader and thus in control of the Senate agenda.
At Tuesday’s rally, Sullivan said he thinks that would be a disaster for the state because a Democratic Senate would seek to block oil and gas drilling.
“This would be horrible for Alaska,” Sullivan said of Schumer becoming Majority Leader. “The D.C. Democrats don’t have a positive agenda for Alaska. They have a target on Alaska. But this would also be horrible for the country we love, for the great United States of America. So, ladies and gentlemen, especially here in the Mat-Su Valley, you need to understand Alaska is the firewall for freedom for the entire country.”
President urges Alaska to repeal top-four primary, ranked choice general
In addition to boosting Republican candidates, Trump urged attendees of the rally to vote yes on this year’s Ballot Measure 2 and eliminate the state’s top-four primary election system and ranked choice general election.
That system was installed in a 2020 ballot measure and retained after a 2022 repeal effort narrowly failed.
Trump has repeatedly called ranked choice voting a “scam” and has urged states to not adopt it.
Under Alaska’s system, all candidates for an office run together, and the top four vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
In the general election, voters rank the four remaining candidates in order of preference. If one candidate gets the majority of the first-choice votes, they win.
If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choices is eliminated and that candidate’s votes are redistributed to the voters’ second choice candidates.
The process continues until only two candidates are left, and the person with the most votes wins.
“Vote against the ranked choice. Vote yes for the elimination of ranked choice,” Trump said.
Pardons signed for two diesel mechanics
During the rally, Trump signed presidential pardons for two local diesel mechanics who pleaded guilty to Clean Air Act violations during the Biden administration.
Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming were convicted in 2022 of removing anti-pollution equipment from dozens of vehicles.
Sullivan had championed the pardons, saying the removals were justified because the anti-pollution equipment can cause poor performance at low temperatures.
Trump previously pardoned Mackenzie Spurlock, co-owner of Matanuska Diesel, in a related case.
Trump repeats ‘$5,000 dividend’ promise, but with new conditions
Speaking in Wasilla, Trump repeated a pledge he first made in September in Texas — a $5,000 payment to every adult American citizen if Republicans win the House and Senate during the midterms.
“The Trump dividend that you get, you’ll get it very quickly after the election,” he said.
That payment would cost $1.2 trillion, significantly increase the national debt and likely would increase the national rate of inflation, an independent analysis concluded last month.
At the Menard Center, Trump said he would restrict the dividend so that it could only be spent in the United States. He did not say how he would track Americans’ use of the money.
“I don’t want you to go to Japan. I don’t want you to go to China. You’ve got to spend it in the United States of America,” he said.
Visit makes local history
Trump became just the third President to visit the Matanuska-Susitna region. The first, Warren Harding, died on his return home after ceremonially opening the Alaska Railroad in 1923. The second was Jimmy Carter, who restricted his visit to a remote mountain lake for fishing.
Trump has repeatedly visited Alaska aboard Air Force One, which frequently stops in Anchorage to refuel during trans-Pacific flights.
His last notable venture away from Air Force One was one year ago, when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin briefly at JBER.
Trump visited Alaska for a campaign rally in 2022 to endorse Dunleavy, U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka and U.S. House candidate Sarah Palin. Of the three candidates, only Dunleavy won that year’s election.
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