Politics

The last Democrat elected to statewide office, former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola, is about even in a head-to-head match with Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a new poll shows.

Peltola hasn’t declared her intention to run in any race for 2026 but is considered a potential candidate for Senate or governor.

The progressive firm Data for Progress conducted the poll, at its own expense. Jason Katz-Brown, an Anchorage-based advisor at the firm, said the results in the Senate race are largely holding steady from its last poll.

“Earlier this summer we had her down by one (percentage point). Now we have her up by one, but that’s well within the margin of error,” he said. “I think we can’t conclude anything about that race. It’s just super, super close, if Peltola were to run for Senate.”

The poll also had Peltola leading in a field of nine candidates for governor – the others being Republicans who actually are running for the office.

It shows Anchorage businesswoman Bernadette Wilson in second place. But once lower-ranking Republicans are removed, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson comes in second.

A large factor is name recognition, Katz-Brown said.

Pollster Ivan Moore of Alaska Survey Research said the Data for Progress results mostly track his own findings – that Peltola leads the field in the governor’s race. But, Moore points out, the other candidates have not had a chance to campaign yet.

“So the idea that this is going to be a cake walk and she can just stroll into the governor’s office is misguided,” Moore said. “She’s just streaks ahead of everyone else because she’s built this following, but it’s not going to be the same in a year.”

The latest poll found Alaskans evenly split on whether they have a favorable opinion of President Donald Trump. The poll had 823 respondents and the pollsters used weighted averages to better reflect Alaska voters.

A Homer Republican state representative declared victory on Friday after successfully pressuring the local newspaper to revise a story about a vigil honoring Charlie Kirk.

Rep. Sarah Vance, who helped organize the vigil, took issue with the newspaper’s description of Kirk’s views.

Vance highlighted the story’s second paragraph, which identified Kirk as a “far-right activist” and an icon among Christian nationalists. It described some of his views as “racist and controversial” and said Kirk perpetuated “conspiracy theories.” The story, by Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac, didn’t include concrete examples, but did link to an 1,100 word article in the New York Times with many.

“This piece is not journalism, but rather it is hate-baiting at its worst,” Vance said in a letter to the newspaper’s owners, Carpenter Media Group, on her Alaska State Legislature letterhead. She accused the paper of bias.

“I urge you to take immediate corrective action,” she wrote.

The newspaper’s owners later removed, edited and reposted the story, a move that Vance welcomed in a post on social media. But a former editor of the newspaper said Vance took it “a step too far for an elected representative.”

“That’s government intimidation of a free press, and, you know, the First Amendment says the government shall not do that,” said Michael Armstrong who worked for the paper for more than two decades. “It’s right there up front, and I think she’s crossed that line.”

Vance and Carpenter Media executives did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Armstrong said it’s fair game for government officials, or anyone else, to criticize a news outlet’s coverage. But he said a passage from Vance’s letter saying she was “aware of a growing movement to boycott Homer News advertising” crossed the line into intimidation.

“If you want to have a civil dialogue with the newspaper, with the editors, with the publishers, that’s appropriate,” he said.

At the Homer vigil, a week after Kirk was assassinated in Utah, Vance had extolled the value of the type of open debate Kirk and his group, Turning Point USA, were famous for.

“Remember that the people who were spreading hate and vitriol are our neighbors,” she said in a short speech at the vigil. “We need to do like Charlie and engage with them in open dialogue that’s respectful, that leads them to the truth.”

In an interview, Pleznac defended her work, saying her coverage of the vigil was part of a larger effort to ensure Homer conservatives saw themselves reflected in the newspaper’s coverage.

“I thought it was important to document them honoring Charlie Kirk’s legacy,” she said. “I went, I took photos, and I took video, and I thought that that was something that would honestly make them happy.”

Pleznac said she wrote the description Vance objected to after reviewing other news coverage of Kirk’s assassination in an effort to provide context backed by evidence.

“Vance said I should have published the original article as an opinion piece because of the language I used to report the opinions that Kirk regularly, proudly espoused,” Pleznac said. “My reporting of those opinions is not a reflection of my bias but rather a reflection of my research.”

Armstrong said the episode echoes another recent Kirk-related controversy — ABC’s decision to temporarily take Jimmy Kimmel off the air following threats from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission after Kimmel made comments about Kirk’s assassination

It comes alongside a broader Trump administration crackdown on media critical of the president and his allies, the New York Times reported. President Donald Trump has sued the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CBS over news stories, and has sought to limit the Associated Press’s access to the White House over its decision not to abide by Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

“I think that (has) set a tone, obviously, for his administration, but also for a lot of other conservative Republicans,” Armstrong said. “It’s making it harder for the press to do their job.”

Pleznac, too, said Vance’s pressure campaign amounts to state censorship.

“It is the antithesis of what I believe ethical journalism stands for,” she said.

Armstrong said Vance should be held accountable, and that government officials more broadly should respect the role that reporters play in American democracy.

“I don’t think newspapers should be intimidated by their government. I think the government should be intimidated by the newspapers,” he said.

If government officials don’t like what they see in the newspaper, Armstrong said, the right approach isn’t intimidation — it’s open dialogue.

KBBI’s Simon Lopez in Homer contributed reporting to this story. 

Editor’s note: Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac previously worked at KTOO as a Morning Edition host from 2022 to 2024. 

Suzanne Downing, the founder of conservative news website Must Read Alaska, is one of the most influential media figures in the state.

Which is why her sudden departure last weekend from the site came as big news in Alaska’s political circles. As reported by the Alaska Landmine — another news site for political junkies founded after Must Read Alaska — Downing resigned after she was pressured to take down a story by Jon Faulkner.

Faulkner, a longtime player in Republican politics, is one of the investors who purchased the site from Downing in 2023; she has continued writing for Must Read Alaska since then.

The story in question focused on Treg Taylor, who resigned his job as attorney general last month and is widely speculated to be planning a bid for governor in the already hotly contested Republican Party primary.

As reported by Downing, Taylor had asked the state’s campaign finance and disclosure agency, the Alaska Public Offices Commission, for an exemption to a requirement that high-level executive branch officials report sources of income from rental properties.

I reached Downing to discuss her resignation from the site, where she’d worked on contract since it was acquired in 2023. We spoke about what happened, her future plans, her journalistic focus on Taylor and her approach to reporting and ethics. A transcript of the interview, with edits and trims for clarity, is below.

Reached by phone, Faulkner, the investor whom Downing alleges asked her to take her story down, declined to comment on her assertions, saying he would address them in a statement on Must Read Alaska later this week.

Taylor sent a statement about Downing’s departure to the Anchorage Daily News saying he learned about it from the Landmine website “like everyone else.”

“I had nothing to do with … her leaving,” he told reporter Iris Samuels.

Here’s the interview.

Nathaniel Herz: What happened?

Suzanne Downing: You might have seen my story on Treg Taylor. I thought that was a legit, fair story. It wasn’t an attack at all. It’s unusual to have an attorney general making a request of an agency that he represents — to have an exemption for a process that a lot of people don’t get exemptions for. I put the documentation in there. People can read it themselves and make up their own minds about whether that’s even appropriate.

Faulkner was very insistent that I take the story down. And this is how this rolls in this world: As soon as people find out how to get stories taken down, there is really no end of complaints in this business. People will say, ‘Why did you take the story down?’ Well, now, if you get a person who’s ethical, you have to tell the truth: ‘I took the story down because the owner told me to take it down.’ That’s not good either, right? So, you know, I’m not going to be subject to censorship, because that’s not how I roll, and I’m not going to be subject to bullying, because that’s not how I roll. And you know me, I’m going to be me. So, it’s pretty easy. No bad guys in this. It’s just time to move on.

NH: What you heard from Jon Faulkner, exactly, was—

SD: ‘Take the story down.’ Just, ‘Take the story down.’ There was no ‘or else’ in it.

NH: You were just, like, ‘I’m going to step away and do something else.’

SD: I don’t have time for this kind of stuff. So, it’s time for me to go. Because he could find somebody else to take the story down.

NH: Will you continue to do what you do, in another way? Is that your plan?

SD: I don’t know that I can really share what my plans are right now. But I will say that an intelligent person would not be doing this without having thought things through, right? And you can call me a lot of things, but I’m not unintelligent.

NH: You were the original founder and sole owner of Must Read Alaska, and you sold the business to Faulkner and company in 2023. Could I say that was a deal in the six-figure range?

SD: Well, I’m not comfortable stating what the range is at all. When you sell something like this, there is no way to value it. So, I felt pretty good about what I was able to do, because I was able to go to Skagway (in Southeast Alaska), and buy a house,

NH: And since 2023, you’ve worked on contract?

SD: Yup.

NH: And you’re living in Skagway, where you have a grandkid?

SD: Yeah. I bought a little house here, so that I could just be present in somebody’s life. That was important.

NH: What I really find to be interesting about this situation is that I heard from one of my conservative sources a few weeks ago that there’s a perception that Suzanne Downing is biased toward one of the Republican gubernatorial candidates, Bernadette Wilson, as opposed to Taylor or the many others. And I did notice that you had done two recent stories focusing on Treg.

Can you speak to the idea that you have a favorite in the Republican primary, and how you’d respond if other candidates or their allies allege that you are not being a totally fair broker?

SD: You’re talking too much. Listen. When Nick Begich (III) ran (for U.S. House), I backed Nick Begich. When Mike Dunleavy ran (for governor), I backed Mike Dunleavy. When Kelly Tshibaka ran (for U.S. Senate), I backed Kelly Tshibaka. And nobody was confused about my position. Nobody should ever be confused about my position. I’m always very up-front about it.

I’m not going to be coy and not say that I don’t have a friendship with Bernadette. I do. I do have a friendship with (former Alaska revenue commissioner and now Republican gubernatorial candidate) Adam Crum. I do have a friendship with (Republican state Sen. and gubernatorial candidate) Shelley Hughes. I also really have a lot of admiration for Treg Taylor. However, it has become more than apparent, in my view, and in many people’s views, that over the past several months, he has been increasing his visibility, with the intention that he was going to run. And I like transparency. I like people to be forthright.

Let’s not play games. I don’t want a governor who says, ‘Oh, I know where the ethical line is, and I’m just going to dance right up to it.’ So, (my first story on Taylor) was a warning shot over the bow. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t go there. You’re better than that. I expect better than that. And the public deserves better than that.’

NH: Is Must Read Alaska going to survive without Suzanne Downing?

SD: Sure. Nobody’s indispensable. Come on, you aren’t, either. Nobody’s indispensable. The world goes on without us, man. It does. I’ve got proof.

NH: As a story, I find it fascinating. I don’t really care, I have no dog in the fight —

SD: You hate me. It’s okay. Here’s the deal. You just need to be advised, if stuff like this happens to you, that you take a lesson from it. It’s hard to sell a news blog to people who aren’t in the news business. Now, I’m not a journalist any more. I write for a cause, the conservative cause. But at the same time, you know, there are aspects that are journalistic about it. And if you ever decide you want to sell, just nail it down.

NH: Is it fair to say that one of the reasons that this is worth leaving this job over is, from your perspective, there isn’t anything inaccurate about the story?

SD: All the documents are in the story. Here’s the documents. Here’s the link.

That was a story I did yesterday. I also did a story saying, ‘Hey, the finalists for the University of Alaska Anchorage chancellor are coming.’ That’s not worth a story either, right? Nothing’s worth a story. It’s all judgment. I’m paid for my judgment. And I haven’t grown this site to be what it is by relying on lily-livered judgment. I’m just bold.

We’re done. I have logged out of their Facebook account. I’ve logged out of their Twitter account. The only reason I haven’t logged out of their WordPress account is because I want to be real careful not to accidentally take down the whole site somehow.

NH: But the story’s still up.

SD: And it’s up to them to take it down. But I’ve got a copy of it. Because if they take it down, you know, that will be of interest.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson announced Tuesday that state Senate Minority Leader Mike Shower, a Wasilla Republican, would join her ticket as her pick for lieutenant governor.

Shower is a conservative who has served in the state Senate since 2018. He’s a commercial cargo pilot and retired Air Force officer. He has focused some of his legislative work on election security, though his reforms have largely failed to find support in the state Legislature.

Wilson highlighted that work in a statement, calling him a “deeply respected conservative leader.” If elected, Shower would be responsible for administering state election laws and appointing the director of the Division of Elections.

In a statement, Shower called Wilson “the clear choice to be Alaska’s next Governor.”

Wilson is a business owner, conservative activist and former talk radio host. She has never held elected office and pitches herself as an outsider.

Alaska’s 2026 governor’s race is becoming a very lopsided affair. While a dozen or so Republicans are either running or believed to be preparing a run, a big question hangs over potential Democratic hopefuls: What will Mary Peltola do?

Nobody has reliable intel, not even Alaska pollster Ivan Moore.

“Well, hang on. Let’s do this: I have three Alaskan buddies here in the car,” he said Monday, when he happened to be driving through western Canada.

He put his phone on mute to do some quick research.

“We had one yes and two nos to the question, ‘Is Mary Peltola going to run for governor?'” he said.

Moore himself is in the yes-she-will camp, making it 50-50 odds in one very unscientific sample.

What does former Alaska congresswoman Mary Peltola say about her plans? She declined to comment for this story. But she attended fundraisers this summer, met with important political players and spoke at the Alaska Democratic Party’s annual picnic, fueling much speculation and inquiry.

Peltola is the only Democrat to win statewide in years. She lost her seat last year to Republican Nick Begich. But Moore said, — based on his real polling, beyond the occupants of his car —that she remains popular. If she enters, Moore said she’d do well in the open primary and would be “overwhelmingly likely” to win one of the four spots on the ranked choice general election ballot in November 2026.

“So it’s kind of an awkward situation: Do you wait for Mary or do you get in?” Moore said, channeling the dilemma other Democratic hopefuls are in. “And if you get in, do you say that you’ll get out if she gets in? Because no one wants to just be in a race to lose it. No one wants to take money away from Mary.”

As he sees it, Alaska Democrats have an innate culture of not competing against each other, because they can’t afford to. There are fewer of them.

The only Democrat to enter the governor’s race so far is former state senator Tom Begich. He pledged to step aside if Peltola runs.

“And I’m hopeful that she will be in a statewide race, too, and that that statewide race will be for the U.S. Senate,” said Begich, who is the uncle of the current Alaska congressman.

Moore polled on the possibility that Peltola might challenge U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan. He found that more respondents had a positive view of Peltola but, in a head-to-head match, Moore’s poll suggests Sen. Sullivan would win.

Moore described those two findings as “very unusual” and attributes it to the incumbent advantage.

Axios and other news sites reported last month that Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer is recruiting Peltola to run against Sullivan. That could mean another multi-million contest, with national Republicans spending a ton of money in Alaska to defend what’s otherwise a safe seat for them. The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it’s not worried.

“Chuck Schumer’s best options in red-state Senate races are losers like Mary Peltola,” a spokesman told Axios.

Anchorage political consultant Jim Lottsfeldt, who generally helps Democrats and moderate Republicans, ardently hopes Peltola enters the governor’s race.

“I think she will just sail far and above everybody else, based on her popularity, her accomplishments, her name ID,” he said. “And the Republicans will be busy in a knife fight amongst the 47 of them to try to get the right to challenge her. It’s sort of a perfect race for her.”

Peltola could spend a year raising money and consolidating support across the left and middle, he said.

“Whereas, with that crowded Republican primary, everybody on that side has to figure out how to get to the second-, third- and fourth-places,” Lottsfeldt said. “And they’re going to be pursuing their niche.”

He figures they’ll take far-right positions to stake out specific GOP lanes to do well in the primary, and then have to walk it back by November.

Alaska AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall said it may feel like potential Democratic candidates are hanging back and waiting for Peltola, but it’s still early. The candidate filing deadline isn’t until June 1, 2026.

“She’s the most electable Democrat in the entire field, and so, yeah, it is natural for everybody to want to know what she’s thinking,” Hall said.

While Peltola lost in 2024, that was a presidential election year. Non-presidential years have lower turnout and Hall said the Alaska voters who stay home skew conservative.

Hall said she doesn’t care which race Peltola files for — governor or U.S. senator — as long as she runs.

“And then when she makes her choice,” Hall said, “we will organize ourselves to try to make the most out of the choice that she makes.”

In a Friday letter to the leaders of the Alaska House and Senate, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he will not call lawmakers into a special legislative session when the current one expires at the end of Sunday.

“I write today to inform you that I will not be extending the current special session,” Dunleavy’s letter begins.

Officially, Dunleavy called the session in hopes that legislators would take up education policy legislation and his proposal to create an independent Alaska Department of Agriculture.

The agriculture issue remains unresolved amid a dispute over executive power and appears headed to the court system.

Lawmakers rejected the governor’s education ideas during this spring’s regular session and declined to take them up during the special session, something Dunleavy called “disappointing” in his letter.

Unofficially, lawmakers and political observers believe the governor called the session to force an early vote on his decision to veto millions of dollars of public school funding. Because not all lawmakers were expected to attend the session, it was expected that an early vote would increase the odds that Dunleavy’s veto would stand.

Instead, through extraordinary actions, 59 of 60 legislators were present on the first day of the special session and overrode Dunleavy’s veto. It was the first time since 1987 that Alaska legislators reversed a sitting governor’s budget veto.

After the override, legislators left Juneau and have not held a meeting in the Capitol since.

An education funding task force, created before the special session, has met once, but lawmakers have not taken up education policies the governor prefers, including legal changes that could lead to an increase in the number of charter schools statewide.

In his letter, Dunleavy said that if he does not see progress on his education policies next year, “I am prepared to call additional special sessions, in both duration and number, until we see substantive steps taken to improve Alaska’s education system.”

“That’s his right,” said Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak. “He can call us into as many special sessions as he wants. Of course, we’re not going to waste time and money. We’ll meet and see where we go.”

Next year is an election year, and the Alaska Constitution prohibits legislators from campaigning while the Legislature is in session.

Calling a special session could keep incumbent lawmakers from raising money or holding campaign events.

“That would be an impact,” Stevens said, “but you know, he has more of his followers running — or as many as people who are opposing his ideas on education. So, it could really hurt his friends more than his enemies.”

In a news conference with reporters after the veto override, Dunleavy said he was considering a special session in September or October to discuss long-term measures intended to bring state revenue and expenses in line.

That’s now off the table.

“The fiscal plan is moving forward. I would expect it to be ready for the 2026 session,” said Jeff Turner, the governor’s communications director.

Another aspect of the special session will linger and may not be resolved short of the court system.

At the start of the special session, Dunleavy issued an executive order setting up the Department of Agriculture.

Lawmakers refused to take up the order, saying they believe it is unconstitutional to issue an executive order during a special session, and they believe it is unconstitutional to reissue one that has already been rejected.

The governor has declined to withdraw the executive order and has said he plans to consider it effective unless lawmakers vote it down.

Legislators are unwilling to vote it down, because doing so would be an implicit recognition of the governor’s right to issue an order during a special session.

The dispute remains unresolved as the special session ends.