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A national Republican organization has put $1.6 million into the Alaska governor’s race — going toe-to-toe with Democratic money that’s also flooded into the state in recent days.

The Republican Governors Association made the transfer Wednesday to Kodiak PAC, an Alaska group that’s working in support of GOP gubernatorial candidates, according to campaign finance disclosures.

A separate donation last week from an arm of the Democratic Governors Association brought its total contribution to a competing group, Forward Frontier, to $1.25 million.

A separate, organized labor-affiliated group, Putting Alaskans First, also reported spending $175,000 this week on radio ads intended to benefit Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the former state House member who’s the only Democrat in the four-candidate gubernatorial field.

While Kreiss-Tomkins won the primary and remains the heavy favorite among political insiders — and prediction markets — the contribution from the RGA indicates that national Republicans think Alaska is still in play. The group did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

“I’m sort of surprised they’re even bothering at this point,” said Jim Lottsfeldt, a centrist political consultant who’s working with groups supporting Kreiss-Tomkins’ campaign. “It’s hard to imagine any of the Republicans prevailing. But I guess they have plenty of money.”

One unanswered question about the Republicans’ participation in the race is what message they will broadcast — and whether they’ll try to boost one of the GOP candidates over the others.

GOP activist Bernadette Wilson was the top-ranked Republican in the August primary, ahead of former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor .

Numerous conservatives, including Bronson and Taylor, have warned that GOP infighting could cost Republicans the governor’s race — if negative campaigning causes voters to choose just one or two of the three GOP candidates in Alaska’s ranked choice voting system.

But Wilson hasn’t played along, labeling both Bronson and Taylor as “spoilers” and asking them to suspend their campaigns.

Independent groups like Kodiak PAC are barred by law from working directly with candidates. Reached by phone Thursday, officials with both the campaigns of Republicans Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor said they hadn’t heard about the $1.6 million contribution.

“We hope this money goes to something that benefits the Republican Party in a ranked choice voting scenario,” said a spokesperson for Bronson. “It’s news to us.”

April Gettys, Taylor’s campaign manager, also denied any knowledge of the RGA’s donation or Kodiak PAC’s plans.

“As of right now, the campaign doesn’t know anything about the PAC,” she said.

Wilson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Kreiss-Tomkins also didn’t respond to a request for comment. His campaign sent a fundraising email earlier Thursday criticizing a new ad from Wilson that attacks him for raising campaign funds from employees of artificial intelligence companies and labeling him as “Chat JKT.”

This story was originally published in the Anchorage Press. Subscribe here. 

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Over the past few weeks, the four of us here at the Beacon have been wrestling with a pretty tough decision, and we’d like to get your feedback.

A few months ago, Jeff Landfield of the Alaska Landmine asked us if we’d be willing to help with an AARP-sponsored candidate debate. The Beacon would co-host a U.S. House debate, and the Anchorage Daily News and the Anchorage Press would co-host debates with the candidates for U.S. Senate and governor.

At the time, we thought the benefits clearly outweighed any drawbacks. Earlier this year, we asked you what we should ask candidates for office this year, and a debate is a great way to do that directly — we’d get to ask the U.S. House candidates exactly what you wanted.

Locally, ABC/FOX would broadcast the debate, and C-SPAN would share it nationally, informing voters across the state and country.

We drafted an impartial list of questions inspired by the issues you raised with us earlier this year, including the cost of living, fisheries and President Donald Trump’s performance in office.

The Alaska Beacon on its own doesn’t have the video production capability or event management experience to do a good job on a debate alone, on short notice — especially not without sacrificing some news coverage — so a partnership made sense.

Collaborations are part of our mission to connect Alaskans to their state government, and we partnered with the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Public Media and KTOO on our voter guides this year. 

But in the weeks since we finalized our partnership with the Landmine, we’ve heard from some readers who say the debate agreement is a bad idea. 

You’ve told us that you believe Alaska Landmine isn’t a journalistic outlet, and Jeff’s advocacy for President Donald Trump and Ballot Measure 2 makes him far from impartial. 

In addition, you’ve told us that Jeff’s decision in 2021 to republish boudoir photos of someone who is now a candidate for governor — photos that had been public on a photographer’s website — went over the line.

Some things have also changed behind the scenes. When we agreed with the Landmine weeks ago, Republican Rep. Nick Begich III had not filled out our candidate questionnaire for the primary election and this would be our first chance to get answers to your questions. He’s now completed one for the general election, and it went online Monday.

Right now, we’ve heard feedback from a relative handful of readers about the debate, but we think that as it becomes better known, more of you will speak up.

And so, after hearing you and thinking about it for a week, we’ve decided to cancel.

We’ll have other opportunities to ask candidates the questions you wanted us to ask. We follow the Citizens Agenda on election reporting — the idea that we ask the questions that are on your minds — and to us, that also means changing course when our readers ask us to. 

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