Former Attorney General Treg Taylor, at right, speaks at a Sept. 9. 2026, forum held by the Last Frontier Republican Club at the Petroleum Club of Anchorage. Next to him, from left, are two of the other three gubernatorial candidates: former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, and former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
As Americans grow frustrated with artificial intelligence software and concerned about the side effects of data centers, they have become a major issue in this year’s midterm elections. Alaska’s gubernatorial race is no exception, particularly since the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority announced plans for a development that could include data centers in Southcentral Alaska.
All four candidates — Republicans Dave Bronson, Treg Taylor and Bernadette Wilson and the Democratic Kreiss-Tomkins — have staked out different policy positions before Alaskans vote this fall.
Data centers need reliable connections to the internet, cheap electricity and a cooling method. Currently, the North Slope is the most promising location for all three.
Current Gov. Mike Dunleavy has backed data centers, saying they could be an economic driver — they would create construction jobs and demand for infrastructure that would enable further development.
Dunleavy is term-limited and cannot run again this year. Four candidates remain in the race to replace him.
“I’m a big believer in data centers. I know that might be unpopular with some folks here,” said Bronson at a candidate forum hosted by Commonwealth North in Anchorage on Thursday.
A former Anchorage Mayor, retired Air Force pilot and former director of the state’s largest airport, Bronson said he sees economic opportunity if data centers are built in Alaska, and he would like to encourage them.
“The logistics (are) minimal, and there’s a lot of money in data centers, but you’ve got to deal with the noise. You’ve got to deal with the cooling, and you’ve got to deal — certainly — with the electricity. And the groups that I’m talking to, they said we’re not going to take your electricity because it’s not reliable. … We will produce our own, and we will move, and we will build our own data centers. That’s good for us. That’s a very strong revenue source,” Bronson said.
“I think we need to embrace it,” he said of data centers.
“We have all the makings of a great place for a data center to thrive and produce good-paying jobs for Alaskans,” Taylor said.
He added that electricity costs are his biggest concern. Any data center must “bring their own energy,” he said, and if a data center then sells excess power it generates, it could be a benefit to Alaskans if it is cheaper than other power available nearby.
“It doesn’t have to drive up costs if you do it correctly. It can produce a net savings to the ratepayers in Alaska,” he said.
Bronson and Taylor each said they see data centers as the future and fear that Alaska will miss out if it doesn’t embrace them.
“It’s a service everybody’s using and everybody has to adapt to and use, or you’re going to get left behind,” Taylor said.
Kreiss-Tomkins is advocating a temporary pause on data center development in the state.
“I support a moratorium on data center development in Alaska until the Legislature can pass a comprehensive regulatory framework for that development in Alaska,” he said during a Sept. 8 forum in Anchorage.
Any limits on development would be decided by negotiations between himself and the Legislature, he said.
The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, will return to the Legislature next year, and the coalition majority that passed the bill is also likely to return, meaning that the next governor will likely be confronted with similar legislation.
Kreiss-Tomkins has also endorsed legislation that would ban AI-generated fake images intended to mislead the public and a bill that would require political advertisers to disclose AI-generated content.
Wilson, asked about her position by text message, criticized Kreiss-Tomkins’ campaign for accepting large contributions from AI company employees.
“Unlike Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins — better known as Chat JKT — our campaign is not funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from California AI companies hoping to own our governor and exploit our state,” she said before explaining her position. “Our administration will make independent decisions that are in the best interest of Alaska, not big donors from the Lower 48. I will never allow Alaska to be littered with hyperscale data centers that take our resources and spoil our lands. Our natural beauty, environment and quality of life matter to every person who calls Alaska home and my job is to represent them, not big tech liberals.”
The City Hall vote center will be open from today until Oct. 6 for in-person voting or ballot drop-off. Voters mailing ballots are urged to take them to the counter and request a hand-stamped postmark; ballots must be postmarked by Oct. 6 to be counted.
If voters make a mistake, they should draw a line through the error, write “no,” and mark the correct choice, or request a new ballot at the vote center.
There are three candidates for the one areawide Assembly seat: Paul Roy Kelly, Brad Sapp and James J. McCants.
Mila Cosgrove is the only candidate for the District 1 Assembly seat.
Four candidates are running for the District 2 Assembly seat: Karla Hart, Joyce M. Niven, Malachi Thorington and David Lee Morris.
Three candidates are running for two Board of Education seats: Britteny Cioni-Haywood, David Noon and Christine Johnson.
reliminary unofficial results will begin being posted election night. Updated preliminary results are expected October 9, with final results scheduled for publication October 20 after certification.
League of Women Voters Juneau municipal candidate forum, 9/16/2026, courtesy of KTOO
The Candidates for school board and city assembly in Juneau’s Oct. 6 municipal election took part in a televised forum Wednesday evening with different positions on taxes, housing and tourism during the 2026 City and Borough of Juneau Municipal Candidate Forum hosted by the League of Women Voters at KTOO.
“Remember, vote like democracy depends on it because it does.” Said Patricia Turner Custard, from League of Women Voters.
Voters will decide three ballot propositions this fall, including whether to extend a temporary 3% sales tax, raise the city’s property tax cap from 9 to 12 mills, and add a new seasonal 1% sales tax to support recreation.
Several assembly candidates, including Malachi Thorington and Joyce Niven, said they support all three measures to shore up city services.
“I will be voting in favor of all three of these tax measures. Juneau… is currently in a funding deficit and a bit of a hole that we need to crawl back out of.” Said Thorington.
While David Morris and Brad Sapp, argued Juneau has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
“I intend to vote yes on the 3% and no on the seasonal and no on the mill cap… It wasn’t about people being unwilling to pay taxes. It was about: ‘City, stop wasting our money.’” Said Sapp.
On tourism, candidates split over whether proposed cruise ship docks on North Douglas should count toward Juneau’s five‑ship limit. Some urged a data-driven passenger cap and a moratorium on new docks.
“The tour industry accounts for 25% of city revenue right now and 20% of our employees… I fully support the tour industry. I fully support its expansion.” Said Sapp.
“I believe the five‑ship limit should stand… If you do the same thing in Douglas, you’re going to have to have the second crossing… I think five ships is the limit because of the pollution problem and the access problem.” Said David Morris.
Housing and public trust emerged as recurring themes. Multiple candidates called for opening more land for development and streamlining the planning process, and others, like Carla Hart said, “I think we should have houses as homes and not as houses as investments.”
Ballots will be mailed Sept. 18 and must be returned or postmarked by Oct. 6.
Former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, third from left, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum on Wednesday, while former Attorney General Treg Taylor, Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson listen. The forum was held by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association and the organization’s annual conference in Girdwood. Taylor, Wilson and Bronson are Republicans. Kreiss-Tomkins is a Democrat. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The three Republicans and one Democrat seeking to become Alaska’s next governor pitched their visions for state healthcare policy on Wednesday to an audience of experts: members of the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association.
The organization capped its two-day annual conference in Girdwood with a forum among the gubernatorial candidates who are running under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system.
Along with addressing healthcare issues, all four candidates repeated talking points they have used at past events.
Former State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Thomkins, the only Democrat on the general election ballot, spoke about consensus-building across party lines, and he criticized outgoing Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy for failing to do so.
Kreiss-Tomkins recounted his experience in a bipartisan coalition focusing on problems rather than party. “That’s a real North Star for me,” he said. “That philosophy of government, that principle has been painfully absent in the governor’s office for the last eight years, and it has really distressed me to see the direction Alaska is going as a consequence of that leadership in our governor’s office the last eight years. And I’m running to change that.”
Former Attorney General Treg Taylor spoke about his desire to cut bureaucratic red tape, including his experience with a real estate license that took a year and a half to transfer, an account he has described at numerous other gubernatorial events.
“We need to have government run at the speed of business,” he said, repeating a slogan he has used elsewhere.
Talk show host and business owner Bernadette Wilson, who has never held public office, pitched herself as an outsider and “the only one up on this stage that has never taken a check from government.” She said she breaks with past practices, including bipartisanship, that she said do not work. The current debates are about many of the same issues that faced gubernatorial candidates in past years, she said.
“And the question that each of us will have to answer is, ‘What are we going to do differently this time?’” she said.
In contrast, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson touted the experience he gained in his three years as chief executive of the state’s largest municipal government.
Former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, a Republican, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
“I ask you to just look at the resumes. I’ve already held the closest job in this state to the governor’s job. I governed 40% of the population of the state as the mayor,” he said. He “paid in blood” for the hard lessons that he learned, he said, experience that will serve him well as governor, a job for which “there’s no time for on-the-job training.”
Lost Medicaid coverage
On specific health topics, the candidates had many areas of agreement, but the discussion also revealed some key differences.
One divide emerged during a discussion about the loss of Medicaid coverage over the past two years for low-income Alaskans. At least a quarter of those being dropped from enrollment are not losing coverage because of lack of eligibility, Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association President Jared Kosin said as he posed the question. Rather, they are being dropped because of long wait times and the bureaucratic hurdles they face in getting their applications considered.
Kreiss-Tomkins, who said he is proud of his record as a lawmaker working with the administration of Gov. Bill Walker to expand Medicaid coverage, said staff shortages are causing some of the problems. And he said some are caused by new rules imposed by the Trump administration, such as the work requirement that was embedded in the sweeping budget bill called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,”, have exacerbated problems for qualified Medicaid recipients, who are among society’s most vulnerable members.
And he made a veiled jab at U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, both Alaska Republicans who voted for the bill and are running for reelection.
It is important to be “very clear about who voted for that legislation that is about to make it harder for Alaskans to get the care they need,” he said. “We need to be very clear-eyed about that.”
Taylor, in contrast, said he supports the bill’s requirement that Medicaid recipients work at least 80 hours a month, either at a paid job or in volunteer service or training.
“It is not unreasonable for an able-bodied adult, without dependents,” he said. Medicaid funds are not infinite,” so stewardship is needed to make sure they are spent properly, he said. Additionally, he said, fewer people on Medicaid could be a good sign. He said unemployment rates in Alaska have dropped.
“So that’s good. That’s the program working,” he said.
Alaska’s unemployment rate, though following a volatile pattern, has been on a long-term decline, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In recent years, the rate bottomed out at 3.9% in August of 2022, rose to 4.8% in December 2025 and then declined again, falling to 4.3% as of July, according to the Federal Reserve bank’s statistics. Alaska’s rates have been above the national rate for most of the years in the past decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Former State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a Democrat, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Wilson said a business-like approach is needed to fix the Medicaid problems.
“We need to treat Medicaid like a business that is failing Alaskans,” she said. “We need to come in and we need to look at how can we hire people from the private sector that know processes and can hold these processes to a more accountable timeline.”
Bronson said Kosin’s statistics show that a large percentage of qualified Alaskans are being dropped from services.
“We are failing at a state level, especially in the Department of Health,” he said. Upon taking office as governor, “I would direct the Department of Health to conduct a review of all operations, and that includes the processing of paperwork for Medicaid,” he said.
Bronson also said that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is causing extra problems for Alaska, and that he would seek an extension of the national Jan. 1 deadline for states to comply with all of its provisions.
Rural health ideas
On the subject of rual health care in general and, more specifically, what to do with “rural health transformation” funds granted from the federal government to the state, two of the candidates referred to their own family experiences.
Kreiss-Tomkins, who is from Sitka, spoke about his mother, an Indian Health Service doctor who spent her entire career at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. He said he got his own health care from that tribal organization.
Wilson, noting that her grandmother was born in the Bristol Bay community of Naknek and that she is of part Aleut ancestry, said she has experience as a patient at the Alaska Native Medical Center.
As for the $272 million in rural health transformation funds that the state got from the federal government and that the Department is disbursing in a series of grants, the candidates offered a variety of suggestions.
Wilson said the state should invest in technology, especially technological advances that might help rural Alaskans avoid the need to travel to Anchorage or elsewhere for care.
Former Attorney General Treg Taylor, a Republican, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
She sees the travel-related challenges when she is at the Alaska Native Medical Center, she said. “You have people who are pulled out of their community, pulled out of their village, they’re coming into Anchorage. Sometimes it’s for an unknown length of time,” she said. The state needs to try to find ways to ensure that rural patients can be treated at home, she said.
Bronson made similar observations about the need to minimize travel for rural patients, citing “robust telehealth” as one tool.
Kreiss-Tomkins said the state should be seeking to make the rural transformation grants “leverage structural and systems change that will have lasting and enduring benefit to the system” rather than use them for construction or for one-time projects. The state should not count on getting similar money in the future, he said.
Taylor called the funding a “gift” that he hopes will be used “to help reinvent healthcare in Alaska.”
There was a split among the candidates over mandatory staffing ratios for nurses, as proposed in a bill that emerged late in this year’s session, Senate Bill 283. The Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association opposed the bill, which did not advance out of the Senate Labor Committee.
Three of the gubernatorial candidates said they also opposed the idea of codifying such ratios into law, but Taylor spoke out in support. He cited a 2016 study in Australia that found that for each patient taken off a a nurse’s workload, there was a 7% drop in the likelihood of death and a 3% shorter hospital stay.
However, establishing firm ratio requirements would also necessitate related action to ensure sufficient numbers of nurses in the state, he said.
“You cannot mandate nurses into existence,” he said.
The other three candidates said mandatory staffing ratios would not be workable in Alaska’s diverse healthcare settings.
However, Kreiss-Tomkins said, the idea behind the proposal is laudable. “I appreciate where the impulse comes from,” he said. “I mean, everybody wants safe standards of care for patients, and you don’t want nurses or other practitioners spread thin.”
Complex subjects
Concerning mental and behavioral health, Bronson repeatedly defended his controversial attempt as Anchorage’s mayor to build a huge shelter and “navigation center” in the city’s university-medical district to serve the unhoused.
Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson, a Republican, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
“That facility, I think, was the right answer to dealing with a lot of the healthcare issues we face in the city of Anchorage and across the state because we’re kind of the homeless center for the state,” he said. “We almost had it done. We actually started pouring concrete.”
Bronson’s plan was for a tented facility to house and serve hundreds of people at a site across the street from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium campus. The Anchorage Assembly rejected the plan after it was revealed that the Bronson administration awarded a contract and started construction illegally. The plan had drawn backlash from residents in the area, which currently is the site of ballfields and recreational trails.
Taylor said Alaska’s mental health challenges are daunting, with suicide and alcohol death rates that are twice the national average.
But there has also been positive movement under the Dunleavy administration, he said. He cited a bill that the governor signed in 2022, House Bill 172, that supports the use of crisis centers and teams to treat patients in emergencies.
There are now mobile crisis centers in four communities, Taylor said. “The added effect of that is keeping people out of your emergency rooms,” he said. “Youth suicides are down sharply now.”
It was unclear whether Taylor was referring only to the communities where the mobile crisis teams are operating or to the state as a whole.
Statewide, the rate of youth suicide fatalities reached a 10-year high in 2025, according to the Department of Health’s epidemiology section.
Other subjects discussed at the forum included the rising cost of health insurance in Alaska and qualities that the candidates are seeking in officials they would hire to manage healthcare services.
At the event’s conclusion, Kosin thanked the candidates for delving into healthcare topics that are complex.
“This is not always the most comfortable environment, and you guys were here. And that says a lot about your character,” Kosin said to the candidates.
Former Attorney General Treg Talor speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum on Sept. 16, 2026, while Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson, former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson listen. At the lecturn is Jared Kosin, president of the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. The organization held the forum in Girdwood, and the event was focused on healthcare issues. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
On Oct. 1, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources will begin limiting how far in advance reservations can be made to three months, down from six months.
The only exceptions to the three-month reservation window will include the Wood-Tikchik Region and cabins on Afognak and Shuyak Islands in the Kodiak region, which will continue to allow reservations up to six months in advance.
The change is part of a shift to a new online booking system and website that also opens Oct. 1. Cabin-seeking Alaskans will be unable to change, modify or cancel their existing reservations from Sept. 28 through Sept. 30 as part of the transition.
Beginning Oct. 1, reservations for all facilities can be made for Jan. 1, 2027 and the 3-month rolling window will begin.
Wendy Sailors, community engagement manager for Alaska State Parks, said by email that the new shorter reservation window is the result of feedback from Alaskans who said “that it is difficult to plan that far out, often people forget that they had the reservation and have to cancel last minute or just don’t use it, etc. So in addition to the three-month rolling reservation window, we are incorporating a few new features like an email reminder 7 days out.”
A sample ballot seen at the headquarters of the Alaska Division of Elections on Thursday, July 9, 2026, shows the language for the campaign finance ballot measure. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
In August, more than 70% of participating Alaska voters supported Ballot Measure 1, voting to restrict the amount of money that individuals can contribute to campaigns for state office.
On Nov. 3, Alaskans will vote on Ballot Measure 2, and an overlooked section of that measure — intended to roll back the state’s election system to what it was in 2020 — almost certainly would repeal part of Ballot Measure 1.
“I mean, people are like, why didn’t you raise this earlier? I’m like, it’s got 91 sections, and I literally didn’t notice,” said Scott Kendall, the author of Alaska’s existing elections system and an attorney fighting Ballot Measure 2.
In 2020, Alaskans passed a different Ballot Measure 2. It installed three major changes to the state’s election system: An open primary, where all candidates run together, and the top four advance to the general election; a ranked choice general election, where voters sort those four candidates in order of preference; and a disclosure law requiring third-party groups to disclose their donors when the groups donate to political candidates and causes.
This year’s Ballot Measure 2 seeks to repeal all three parts, returning Alaska elections to what they were in 2020.
There’s also a new wrinkle because of this year’s Ballot Measure 1.
That single-ticket system was installed in 2020’s Ballot Measure 2. Ballot Measure 1 limited donations to that single ticket, putting the limits in Alaska Statute 15.13.070(g).
Ballot Measure 2 seeks to get rid of the combined single-ticket campaign, and Section 5 states, “AS 15.13.070(g) is repealed.”
That would get rid of the combined donation limit for governor and lieutenant governor. But some state officials say another law may then come into play.
Because candidates would — if Ballot Measure 2 passes — be running separately, they may be limited by a different part of Ballot Measure 1, AS 15.13.070(b), which applies to individual candidates.
That’s the position held by Alaska Public Offices Commission director Heather Hebdon. APOC is in charge of enforcing Alaska’s campaign finance laws.
By email, Hebdon said that if Ballot Measure 2 passes, “contribution limits for gubernatorial candidates would fall under those found in AS 15.13.070(b)(c) and (f).”
She believes APOC would likely write new regulations to deal with those limits’ applicability to governor and lieutenant governor candidates.
Kendall said he isn’t sure about that.
“I will say it’s really legally tenuous. I think when you have a statute that says a thing and you explicitly repeal that thing, you get what you get,” he said.
Supporters of Ballot Measure 2 said they don’t have a position on the issue.
“Repeal Now wrote Ballot Measure 2 as a full and complete repeal of the 2020 ballot measure that brought ranked choice voting to Alaska. We are unaware of any effect on Ballot Measure 1 and thus can’t comment on that,” said Bethany Marcum, treasurer of Repeal Now, the leading group behind Ballot Measure 2.
Craig Richards, a former attorney general who represented Repeal Now in court, said he was unfamiliar with the issue.
The Alaska Department of Law also declined to make a definitive statement on the topic.
Sam Curtis, a spokesman for the department, said by email that attorneys within the Alaska Legislature would make the final determination of what happens if Ballot Measure 2 passes.
That’s because the revisor of statutes — an obscure staff official — is in charge of mediating disputes between enacted laws.
Emily Nauman, the Legislature’s chief attorney, declined to say how the Legislature might interpret any conflict.
Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage and a sponsor of Ballot Measure 1, said earlier this month that he has requested that Nauman’s office deliver a written ruling on the issue, but as of Tuesday afternoon, that memo had not yet been completed.
The Alaska Supreme Court has dealt with similar issues before. In 2021 and in 2006, the court ruled that later laws trump earlier ones.
“In general, if two statutes conflict, then the later in time controls over the earlier, and the specific controls over the general,” the court wrote in a 2006 decision.
On Sept. 11, Schrage said he doesn’t like the idea of repealing a campaign finance limit.
“It seems to fly in the face of what Alaskan voters have time and time again reaffirmed as a priority for them,” he said.
The Alaska Supreme Court had an opportunity earlier this month to address the issue but declined to take it up.
As a result, the final description on the ballot says only that Ballot Measure 2 would “remove the limits on donations to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor.”
It doesn’t say whether anything will replace them.
NOTN- The Juneau Assembly has indefinitely tabled a proposal that would have required nonprofits to collect sales tax on purchases, after a marathon debate that Mayor Beth Weldon described as increasingly confusing for the public.
Speaking on Monday night’s meeting, Weldon said the measure drew intense public interest, but efforts to carve out protections for smaller nonprofits only muddied the policy.
“We were just creating confusion. Just for instance, what’s intermediate fundraising? How do the raffle tickets fit in there? 14 days isn’t long enough for a raffle ticket period, and so at the end, especially after talking with the finance, Ms. Woll proposed an amendment to table it indefinitely. And what that means is, unless we bring it up at our next meeting, it dies at this time.” Weldon said.
At the meeting, 17 nonprofit leaders testified against the measure, raising concerns about fairness, added financial burdens and more confusion over how the ordinance would work.
“What I have a hard time understanding is the policy rationale for carving out certain types of non-profits as ineligible for the sales tax exemption, though we have an important charitable mission, it sends a message that it’s not important enough. Crafting tax law is tricky. Our Internal Revenue Code is 3000 pages. The regs are another 70,000. I get it. I understand interpretations have to be made and lines drawn, and I also understand-I truly do-the desire to protect basic human services, food, and shelter to those who need it most. But I question whether the city should be in a position of determining where to draw that line and what services and missions are important.” Said Bridget Lujan, Executive Director of Juneau Dance Theater.
The proposal was projected to raise closer to $1–2 million in new revenue, down from earlier estimates of $3 million, according to Weldon. She said the financial benefit no longer justified the level of community angst.
The Assembly also approved funding for Hesco barriers and other work related to glacial outburst flood mitigation.
Alaska candidates for the U.S. House race incumbent Republican Nick Begich III (left) and independent challenger Bill Hill (right) squared off at a fisheries debate in Kodiak on Sep. 12, 2026. (Photo by Brian Venua/Alaska Beacon)
Front-runner candidates for Alaska’s sole U.S. House of Representatives seat expressed strong support for the fishing industry and coastal communities at a debate in Kodiak over the weekend.
Incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III and independent challenger Bill Hill took very similar positions on issues including fisheries bycatch, declining fish stocks and representation in federal fisheries management, but there were some differences.
Begich touted his legislative record in his first two-year term as beneficial to Alaska fisheries, while Hill said his personal history as a lifelong fisherman in Bristol Bay is advantageous for representing Alaska in Congress.
Begich, a technology entrepreneur and business executive, garnered 44.6% of the vote in the primary election, while Hill, a former school superintendent and commercial fisherman, received 32.5% of the vote. Third and fourth place finishers in Alaska’s ranked choice general election include Eric Hafner — a registered Democrat serving a federal prison sentence in New York – with 3.8% of the vote, and Libertarian Jim McDermott of Fairbanks with 1.2%.
The winner of the November election will serve a two-year term as one of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Begich promoted his legislative record as a freshman in the Republican-controlled U.S. House. This spring, six bills he sponsored passed Congress to become law — a tie with another Arizona lawmaker for most bills passed as a freshman — but none of those bills directly address fisheries issues.
“I have passed more legislation than any freshman on record,” Begich said. “And those are good Alaska bills — they are bills that unlock lands for Alaskans, and they are bills that, in many cases, we’ve been working to achieve for decades.”
Hill repeatedly referenced his experience growing up subsistence and commercial fishing in Bristol Bay. “I raised three of my kids on my fishing boat, and understand the importance that state, national and international politics play in what happens on our back decks with our children, what happens in the income that we can take home, what taxation does to us, what tariffs do to us,” he said. “I’ve lived a life of fish.”
Bycatch
Several debate questions focused on bycatch, the accidental harvest of nontargeted fish. Bycatch has raised public concern around Alaska’s industrial trawl fleet, which has many vessels harbored in Kodiak, where the debate took place.
Both candidates said they support broader representation on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees fishing policy in federal waters, including bycatch regulations.
Begich said he supports increasing representation for subsistence, sport fishers and small commercial operators, as well as large operators, in council decisions. He pointed to a bill he introduced, the Bycatch Reduction Act, which would require the council to implement gear performance standards to reduce bycatch, to make investments in fishing gear and fisheries research and to increase monitoring and reporting from the industry and the council, among others.
“We need transparency — more transparency for folks who may have conflicts of interest that currently serve on the NPFMC,” Begich said. He also expressed support for a chum bycatch limit established by the council this year for the Bering Sea pollock fishery.
Hill said he supports bycatch limits to protect salmon runs, and additional seats representing subsistence and tribal groups.
“Subsistence is sacred, and the very first thing that needs to happen, and I think you hear it from across the state — this is why there’s such a loud outcry — is because some of our subsistence users have not been able to access their resource, which is more than just protein, for quite a few years now,” he said.
In a question about Congress’ role in reducing bycatch, debate moderators noted all fisheries produce some bycatch harvest and said “a goal of zero bycatch isn’t reasonable.”
But both candidates pushed back on that framing and said that zero bycatch should be the ultimate goal.
The industrial trawl fleet, particularly boats that target pollock, has been the focus of public criticism because it contributes substantially to the state’s bycatch numbers for species including juvenile halibut, cod and salmon returning to spawning grounds throughout Alaska.
Begich said he agreed that every fishery produces some level of bycatch and it’s up to the council to manage each complex fishery. But he said the goal should be “aggressive.”
“I do think the goal should be zero. It’s going to be a long road to get there. But we also have to recognize that in every single fishery, whether it be subsistence, sport, small commercial or large commercial, they have a bycatch responsibility as well,” Begich said.
Hill said the goal should be zero bycatch. “We need to work towards that. We need to work towards a very low-threshold for our trawling industry, especially the out-of-state corporate trawlers,” he said.
And Hill expressed confidence that the trawl industry would be able to meet required limits.
“My perspective is when you set something out for industry to accomplish, they always find a way, and we’ve seen over and over again that our trawl fleet has met the standards that are being set for them. So, can we get to 0%? That would be everybody’s desire, but should we be working towards it? Yes, we should be,” Hill said. “But those who are bad actors, you’ve got to leave the fishery.”
When asked about the primary causes of king and chum salmon run declines, Begich responded it was “largely bycatch related.”
“You look at the Yukon, you look at the Kuskokwim — those runs are way down. We’re seeing some recovery in chums. I think that the cap that we put in with NPFMC is sort of that initial shot saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to be managing these more carefully,’” Begich said. “But I think that historical bycatch is the root cause.”
Hill said he agreed, and added that climate change driven factors are affecting Alaska’s salmon runs. “Climate change is a real thing, and we need to start mitigating for that,” he said. “But yes, we need to end bycatch.”
Processing and protecting Alaska’s fisheries
Both candidates said they would support investments in building the workforce in fishing and processing sectors, as well as more visas for hiring international workers in processing.
In a lightning round of questions, the candidates agreed on every issue. They supported science-based fisheries management, more investment in research and engaging with a wide range of fisheries interest groups prior to introducing new legislation or policies. They also agreed that rural and tribal communities should have more say in decisions affecting fish.
When asked how they would ensure the economic value of federally-managed fisheries would not come at the expense of Alaska communities, Begich said he supports labeling rules for farmed vs. wild-caught fish.
“Alaska seafood is competing with penned fish and farmed fish, and the end consumer doesn’t know it,” Begich said. “And so, when you’re buying an Alaska seafood product, we need to make sure that it’s labeled Alaska. That’s transparent because it gives us the best price for our product and it reduces some of the pressure on our fisheries.”
Hill said he would support more investment in in-state seafood processing to diversify processors to which fishing fleets can sell their harvests. “More processing in our state that’s not a consolidated, vertically integrated type of processing,” he said. “And we need to make sure that we’re legislating to make sure that farmed fishing does not come to our seas and that we keep them off for as long as we possibly can.”
Geopolitics
Both candidates expressed support for tariffs on international seafood to protect Alaska markets.
Hill also condemned the U.S. war in Iran for driving high costs of fuel and affecting fisheries.
“The Iran war is a terrible, terrible thing in terms of how it’s impacted our industry,” he said. “The fuel costs I paid this summer were $2 per gallon more than last year, and they were already high. And then we start talking about things like food and groceries, and the things that allow our crews to do good work for us while we’re fishing hard.”
Begich has expressed support for the Trump administration’s military action against Iran, and voted against a war powers resolution that passed Congress in June calling on President Donald Trump to remove armed forces against Iran, unless authorized by Congress or a declaration of war.
The Alaska Division of Elections director’s office in Downtown Juneau is seen on Aug. 26, 2026. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Rep. Andrew Gray of Anchorage is not a Swiss businessman. Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon is not selling fire sprinkler systems. Lieutenant governor candidate Zac Johnson isn’t running an equestrian fox-hunting club in Indiana.
Days after the Alaska Department of Law said it found possible gaps in dozens of political candidates’ financial disclosure forms, a review by the Alaska Beacon and interviews with the affected candidates found many of the problems identified by the department either don’t exist, rely on old information, or amount to minor errors.
“I’ve talked to probably 10 legislators, and probably eight of them had something on that list that was just bogus,” said Rep. Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage and one of the candidates in the report, “property they don’t even own anymore, businesses they don’t own, and yet they’re on the list.”
“On the basis of that additional information, the Lieutenant Governor will certify the two candidates,” said a statement released by Dahlstrom’s office at the time.
That restoration reversed one Dahlstrom took just five days before. On Aug. 31, Dahlstrom followed recommendations from the Alaska Public Offices Commission and disqualified Taylor and Tagle based on the fact that they had not submitted full Public Official Financial Disclosure forms within a 30-day deadline set by state law.
Former Attorney General Treg Taylor speaks at a Sept. 8, 2026, gubernatorial candidate forum held by the Last Frontier Republican Club at the Petroleum Club of Anchorage. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Taylor, a former attorney general who used to lead the Department of Law, had been asked in 2025 to provide a list of tenants at his rental properties in Anchorage. He did not provide a partial list until late July, about three weeks before the primary election.
“My biggest issue is that APOC never reached out to me with any discrepancies when I filed the disclosure,” Coulombe said. “And so the difference with Treg (Taylor) is that he knew that there was an issue and chose not to change it.”
The Department of Law’s review was extraordinary. When they register to run for office, candidates are required to submit a form listing their personal finances from the previous year. If they don’t submit one, they cannot run. Normally, any gaps in a disclosure only come to light when someone files a complaint with the commission.
Officials with the Department of Law said at a Monday news conference with Dahlstrom and Gov. Mike Dunleavy that they initiated their review last week, expediting it ahead of ballot printing deadlines.
Rachel Witty, director of the civil division of the Department of Law, said the review was done in the course of a day and a half.
“So I can’t emphasize enough that this is a preliminary review. We didn’t have time to contact candidates. We didn’t have time to verify every apparent match. Nor is it our role to do that. There might be mistaken identities. It was not conducted with the kind of due diligence that APOC would do before making a determination that someone had violated the law.”
Witty said paralegals, not attorneys, conducted a search by reviewing business licensing databases, property records, and a large national database called TLOXP.
It’s unclear whether APOC, the agency that regulates financial and political disclosures, will follow up with candidates or take any enforcement actions.
Among the candidates flagged for review were all four lieutenant governor candidates and all four candidates for governor.
Republican candidates Dave Bronson and Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, through a campaign spokesperson, denied the department’s findings, and defended their financial disclosures. Kreiss-Tomkins immediately corrected one error that was identified.
Taylor and Republican Bernadette Wilson did not respond to requests for comment.
“This is getting more absurd by the moment,” said Edgmon when informed by the Beacon that the Department of Law had identified him as director and president of Inland Empire Fire Protection, a fire sprinkler company in Spokane, Washington.
That company is a subsidiary of Choggiung, Ltd., an Alaska Native corporation based in Dillingham.
Until 2017, Edgmon served as chairman of the board for Choggiung, but he hasn’t been in that role for almost a decade.
“I’ve never had a personal relationship with them,” he said of the fire sprinkler company.
The Department of Law report also said Edgmon failed to properly disclose some rental properties in Dillingham — they’re listed, but in the “debts” section of the report, rather than under “interests.”
The Department of Law flagged Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, as possibly being the owner of William B Stapp LLC but also noted that the firm was dissolved in 2015, five years before Stapp first ran for office.
“I’m not actually sure why they even flagged me,” Stapp said on Friday.
Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, published a video on social media after the report listed him as owning a business in Switzerland. Gray said he’s both never been to Switzerland and never owned a business.
In a comment posted by Fairbanks writer Dermot Cole, independent state House candidate Joy Beth Cottle of Fairbanks said that the Department of Law review incorrectly flagged her as having an out-of-date disclosure form.
Cottle filed to run for office in 2025, a year ahead of the deadline, and thus filed a form covering the 2024 tax year. State law doesn’t require an updated POFD in that case. Several other candidates were dinged for the same reason.
Cottle also noted that she was linked to a property she “sold in 2013 and has since burnt to the ground and changed owners several times. I drove by and took a picture of it — it’s a vacant lot.”
In Anchorage, Coulombe said she was faulted for not listing her husband’s last name. After 40-plus years of marriage, she said, she thought it would be assumed that they had the same last name.
She was also faulted for listing only the zip code of a rental property. She’s since submitted a revised form to fix the problem.
“If a mistake or something happened, then OK, email me and I’ll fix it,” Coulombe said. “But you know, the whole idea of putting this big list out like we’re all hiding something is just — I have no words for that.”
Coulombe and other legislators named in the report said they are suspicious of the way the Department of Law and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration handled it.
Anchorage Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel was surprised to hear she was flagged by the review. The department said she failed to disclose being a director of Anchorage Community Mental Health Services, Inc., but that is the old name of Anchorage Behavioral Health which was changed in 2020. Giessel is president of the board, which is listed on her disclosure report.
“Well, see, the Department of Law is going after anyone that is not a staunch radical right Republican,” she said. “So that is really immaterial to me.”
The list of candidates in the department’s review include 24 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 17 independents.
“I have huge concerns about what the Dunleavy administration is doing with the departments under its control,” she said. “This is unbelievable — the overreach that’s happening, the inappropriate behavior, the obvious interference in elections. It’s no wonder, many of my constituents, as I knock door-to-door, don’t trust this election system because they’re seeing all of this, very — I’ll call it ‘very unusual’ in quotes — behavior by state government and the federal government.”
Witty responded to Giessel’s comment by email on Friday.
“I have worked for the Department of Law for 20 years, through five administrations, and I can tell you unequivocally, that what occurred last week was not motivated by politics. The informal review was done completely internally by line level staff who only want to do good work for the people of Alaska,” she said. “The list includes candidates from all party affiliations and does not target one political party over another. By its nature, it had to be done on an extremely expedited timeline and could not be as thorough as anyone would have wanted it to be. We have been very open that the list likely contained errors and we have consistently messaged this to the candidates and to the public. However, the preliminary findings contained enough potential discrepancies to raise questions about whether the law was being applied fairly across the field of candidates. The bottom line is that candidates were added back onto the ballot and the field remains broad — allowing voters to have the final say.”
NOTN- The Juneau Assembly will consider changes to sales tax exemptions for nonprofit organizations during its regular meeting Monday at 6 p.m.
Ordinance 2026-32(b) would require qualifying nonprofits to collect and remit sales tax on most sales, services and rentals. Exceptions would include direct social services for vulnerable or disadvantaged people, such as food, housing and disability assistance.
The ordinance would also preserve exemptions for intermittent fundraising events, including auctions, bake sales and temporary markets. Those events could last no more than 14 consecutive days and happen no more than four times a year.
Below is the announcement released by CBJ.
Currently, sales, services, and rentals made by qualifying 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and 501(c)(19) organizations are broadly exempt from sales tax. At Monday’s meeting, the Assembly will take public testimony on ordinance 2026-32(b), which would narrow sales tax exemptions in the following ways:
When a non-profit is selling items or services or providing rentals, they will need to collect and remit sales tax from their customers unless they fall into the two categories below:
Sales of social services provided by a qualifying non-profit, defined as direct services to vulnerable, disadvantaged, or distressed individuals to meet basic life needs (food assistance, housing assistance, disability support, day services, senior and assisted living support).
Sales of goods, services, and rentals tied to intermittent fundraising events, defined as a discrete campaign, gala, auction, bake sale, or temporary market drive lasting no more than 14 consecutive days and occurring no more than four times per calendar year.
A non-profit that purchases items, services or rentals may continue to procure those items without paying sales tax with a sales-exempt card from CBJ. Non-profits with ongoing or regular sales activity that fall outside of these three categories would need to collect and remit sales tax. The existing sales tax exemption on essential food and utilities would continue to apply to non-profit sales of SNAP-eligible foods.
Ordinance 2026-32(b), if adopted, would take effect January 1, 2027.
Residents who want to provide testimony on this ordinance or any other topics may email BoroughAssembly@juneau.gov on or before September 14. They can also sign up for in-person testimony before the meeting in the Assembly Chambers, or testify remotely by calling the City Clerk’s Office at 907-586-5278 before 4 p.m. on the day of the meeting.
