An October 20 Data for Progress poll showed toss-ups across every major race in Alaska, a state that Donald Trump won by 13 points in 2024. That includes the dead-heat race for Alaska’s at-large House seat, which covers the whole state. Democrats have pinned their hopes on and spent money to elect an independent who hasn’t yet confirmed which party he’ll caucus with should he get to Congress.
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The unusual nature of the race between incumbent Republican Nick Begich (whose uncle was once a Democratic senator) and DCCC-backed independent Bill Hill doesn’t stop there. It could be seen during a relatively nasty October 15 debate, where the closing statements revealed a surprising level of convergence.
“I like Bill Hill,” said Begich twice in succession. Despite the accusations and innuendo that preceded and followed, I’m pretty sure he meant it.
“I like Nick as well, and look forward to having him as a constituent,” retorted Hill in his closing statement. I’m pretty sure he meant it, too.
A month earlier, ahead of a September 12 debate related to Alaskan fishery issues, Hill and Begich could be observed engaging in friendly, loose conversation. The two then spent almost the whole hour agreeing with each other on seafood policy. Begich could not help but smile at Hill’s easy, genuine charm as they sat clustered together on a stage in Kodiak.
During a lightning round that featured the candidates holding paddles with “yes” on one side and “no” on the other, Begich and Hill answered the same way on all ten questions. This included inquiries about overharvesting in North Pacific fisheries and increasing available visas for the seafood processing workforce.
“It’s great that we agree—difference is I’m doing that work right now,” Rep. Begich said at one point. Playing the experience card was about as heated as things got.
But who better to spark drama and animus than President Donald Trump? He held a rally in Wasilla, Alaska, on October 13th to stump for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Begich. The president referred to Hill as a “radical left maniac” who would kill the “Alaska way of life.”
If Begich was attempting to make the familiar pivot away from an unpopular president, the rally made that nearly impossible. Begich’s strongest attack on Hill is that his independent challenger is being evasive about his DCCC backing and his plan to caucus with the Democratic Party if elected. Hill’s counter is that Begich has voted 100 percent in line with Donald Trump in Congress.
“YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU WANT to talk about complicated things, you talk about fishing in Alaska,” Hill told the Prospect in an interview. He wasn’t joking.
More than most states in the lower 48, hyperlocal issues dominate even federal Alaskan politics. A poll that Hill shared with me showed that 74 percent of Alaskans want a federal ban on trawling, a practice that you have probably seen on TV or in movies as a symbol of industrial malevolence, involving gigantic, rolling nets that catch masses of fish at sea. The issue of trawling intersects with something called “bycatch,” which is when fishermen discard sea creatures they are not interested in catching. Trawling bycatch, then, is when trawlers dispose of (and often kill) sea creatures they do not want to keep in large quantities.
Begich and Hill at least appear to be in sync on the issue, with both calling for “zero percent bycatch,” though Begich described it more as an aspirational goal. Begich has made pledges in the past not to accept money from corporate trawlers, though reporting by the Anchorage Daily News revealed that Rick Whitbeck, Begich’s former congressional state director, is involved in a pro-trawling campaign called “The Truth Alaska.”
Begich has avoided the scrutiny bestowed upon Sen. Sullivan, who has been attacked by his Democratic opponent Mary Peltola for accepting at least $300,000 in contributions from the trawl industry. During their turn on stage at the “September 12 Alaska Congressional Fisheries Debates,” Peltola accused Sullivan of being a stooge of “lower 48 out-of-state factory trawlers.”
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Hill knows about a lot of things, because he has lived a lot of things. “I started commercial fishing at the age of eight, and I still do it to this day,” he told me. “I’ve been a construction worker, everything from laying sewer lines to building houses. I was a 25-year educator in this state, and I was a teacher, a principal, and a superintendent. And then I’m a small-business owner with my wife, Diane, who builds products for the commercial fishing industry.”
Whatever Trump may claim, Hill struck me during his interview as a pragmatic populist who understands and embodies the “Alaska way of life” on a level neither Trump nor Hill’s humble interviewer could possibly grasp.
Hill quickly picked up on the fact that I was not well-versed in the subject of Alaskan subsistence lifestyle, and patiently and passionately explained what it means to him and to many others in the state.
“We have subsistence hunting and fishing in this state, and a lot of people do things like gathering berries and things to help support their subsistence lifestyle,” he said. “But subsistence is deeper than that for many people, especially people from Native roots. It’s a part of their culture. It’s a part of their spirituality. It is their connection to the lands and the water, to the fish and the game. So it’s really important for many people in this state. And yes, it is protein, and it helps lower the cost of where people live. But it’s more than that. It’s about the whole being.”
Hill, a native Dena’ina Athabascan, has lived a subsistence lifestyle from a very young age, fishing and picking berries in his village (population about 100), while living without television, radio, telephone, or even electricity for much of his childhood.
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He shared with me an anecdote he has used in debates and on the campaign trail. “In February, my mom needed more protein. She needed meat. So I went on a snow machine with my firearm, and I went out and got a caribou for her.”
HILL’S SUPPORT FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT is another area where he and Begich agree. But one big area where they differ, and what Hill is prioritizing in his campaign, involves Begich’s support for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which has had significant impacts on Alaska.
“I talked to a young lady down in southeast Alaska who’s raising a family, a bunch of young kids,” Hill recounted. “She went from paying just over $400 a month for her health care and is faced with the loss of the ACA tax credits with a bill of over $3,000 a month. That means that she is going to go without health care … I talked to a group of union members in Fairbanks that had built the training pipeline to install battery systems and wind energy systems in their community of Fairbanks. And all that got clawed back by the OBBBA.”
“We need representatives that truly understand the pain Alaskans feel and our hopes and our dreams and want a government that works for them,” he concluded.
Hill also told me that implementing right to repair in Alaska is especially important because of the state’s vastness.
“We have these little communities called bush communities which are fly-in only communities that might be hundreds or even thousands of miles from a place like Anchorage,” he explained. “I knew a guy who repaired all of the equipment that graded roads and airports, very important infrastructure all up and down the chain over an area probably the size of West Virginia or a state like that.”
One problem for graders like his friend, Hill said, is the proprietary equipment that companies restrict customers from fixing without a certified operator. This makes companies like John Deere or Apple more money in the aftermarket. But given the size of Alaska, such an arrangement is impractical, with no certified mechanic available for hundreds of miles.
“We need to work to ensure that if you buy a piece of equipment, you have the right to repair it without the interference of the person who sold it to you,” Hill said.
DURING THE OCTOBER 13 RALLY, Trump criticized Hill’s tenure as superintendent of the Bristol Bay Borough school district from 2013 until 2023. “Reading proficiency in his schools [sic] districts fell from 86 percent to 11 percent—other than that he is doing wonderfully! In math it fell from 74 percent sufficiency to 9 percent efficiency.”
The accusations about Hill from the president would be more articulately echoed by Begich in the October 15 debate. Hill retorted by saying that the data had been cherry-picked, adding that virtual learning forced by the COVID-19 pandemic had been difficult due to bad internet connectivity, among other problems.
The more convoluted story is that Alaska replaced its proficiency test for students in 2015, and scores plummeted the moment it was introduced. The 85 students tested in Bristol Bay Borough during the 2014-2015 school year actually slightly exceeded average statewide scores. That test was replaced two more times between 2016 and 2021, and scores collapsed even further with the onset of COVID.
According to U.S. News and World Report, 92 percent of students at Bristol Bay Middle/High School are economically disadvantaged. Comparing Bristol Bay Borough School District’s standardized scores during Hill’s tenure with statewide averages for economically disadvantaged students indicates that the district was at worst on par with the rest of the state, and sometimes slightly ahead.
“Bill is proud of his 25 years working in Alaska public schools, from classroom teacher to being named Alaska’s superintendent of the year in 2023,” said Hill campaign senior adviser Ira Slomski-Pritz in a statement to the Prospect. “Nick Begich has been complicit in the deterioration of Alaska’s schools, voted for massive cuts to health care and food assistance for Alaska families, and is making dishonest attacks with two weeks to go because he knows how close this race is.”
The Begich campaign did not return a request for comment about the Bristol Bay Borough school district test score statistics, nor other issues.
THE ALASKA AT-LARGE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION is one of the quirkiest House races in the country, and Hill one of the most distinctive candidates. Republicans appear concerned, making over $764,000 in independent expenditures either for Begich or against Hill since October 1, according to FEC data.
It may be the last race called in the 2026 election. Polls will close at midnight Eastern time, but it could take up to 15 days to get a projected winner, thanks to collecting ballots from remote areas and the state’s ranked-choice voting system. (Four candidates appear on the ballot, and voters rank them in order. The lowest-performing candidate is eliminated and votes are transferred to the next-ranked choice, until one candidate reaches a majority.)
Hill is one of many independents running across the country, following the lead of Dan Osborn, the Senate candidate in Nebraska who nearly pulled an upset in 2024. He’s also running this year. A defeat of Begich in Alaska would likely open the door for Hill-type candidates around the country in 2028.
It would also represent a dramatic repudiation of Trump 2.0 in a previously safe Republican seat.
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