State of the Race: A Tregnancy Announcement

It’s Friday, Alaska. Whew. What a week.

In this edition: After thumbing his nose at the state’s campaign transparency laws, former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor joined the race for governor this week, meriting an overdue update on the state of the race for governor, complete with an updated power ranking. But first, let's look at Taylor's time as Attorney General and why he's off to a rough start despite having some deep pockets on his side. Then, let’s wrap it up with the reading list and weekend watching.

Current mood: 🍂

State of the Race: A Tregnancy Announcement

Alaska’s former Attorney General Treg Taylor officially joined the race for governor this week, launching his campaign off a six-plus-month runway filled with profile-raising, state-paid appearances and years of signing onto virtue-signalling lawsuits against Biden. Leaving behind a legacy of finding the perfect legal contortion to back up whatever legally dubious piece of Dunleavy’s agenda was in question, he spent his final day as Attorney General as the guest of honor at a $100,000-per-ticket fundraiser for groups that he may or may not have some sort of connection with, according to ADN coverage, and he declined to answer questions. What we do know is that Advancing Alaska Action produced a bunch of professional B-roll of Taylor and his family and posted it to YouTube three weeks ago. That footage, which is the standard fare of posing with his family, fixing salmon and driving around a side-by-side, was used in his official launch video this week.

It seems weird, but I'll save that for a deeper dive at some point.

Anyway, that kind of money might give him the edge but the impact of deep-pocketed backers has its limits in a world without campaign finance limits – there are only so many ad slots to buy and so many road signs to print – and Taylor has a lot of work to do if he aims to unite a Republican party that’s currently fielding 10 candidates for governor. Not only does the field have just about every flavor of right-wing conservative you could expect, but several are also more personable.

Skim the usual spots, and you’ll see a lot of surprisingly varied conservative vitriol aimed in his direction.

I think a lot of that’s to do with the fact that the guy is not just wealthy but so-wealthy-that-I-should-not-be-held-to-the-same-rules-as-everyone-else wealthy. It was an apparently sore spot that conservative writer Suzanne Downing hit one too many times with her story reporting how he was asking for special treatment from campaign finance regulators because it’s just too darn hard to upload the legally required financial disclosures for the more than 200 people who pay him rent at the multi-million-dollar apartment tower he owns with his wife.

Pressure from ownership, upset with the treatment of Taylor in that story, ultimately led to Downing’s exit from the outlet she created. She said they ordered her to take the story down. They claimed to be combating the “political favoritism” creeping into the outlet’s coverage, which is to say expect nicer coverage of Taylor ahead.

The exemption that ended an era

A report detailing one Republican’s efforts to conceal his business dealings ultimately pushed the outlet’s business into the public eye.

The Alaska MemoMatt Acuña Buxton

As I wrote earlier this week, her coverage of Taylor was one of the more straightforward things she’s written – making her exit from the outlet nearly noble – and her most pointed note was just stating the obvious takeaway from the whole hulabaloo: That it wasn’t a good look for a former Attorney General, a guy who just penned an op-ed claiming “The rule of law doesn't work unless it applies to all of us," to be asking for special treatment.

She wrote that people "may draw scrutiny as he positions himself for a run for governor. Personal financial disclosures have discouraged many business people from running for office, and so some may ask why Taylor, as the attorney general, should get an exemption from his public official financial disclosure."

Apparently, that kind of scathing "political favoritism" gets you the boot.

Still, staff at the Alaska Public Offices Commission agreed, writing in their recommendation that allowing him to skip any part of the disclosure defeated the purpose of the state’s transparency laws.

“The purposes of public official financial disclosures in part are to assure that public officials and their official acts are free from the influence of undisclosued business interests and to allow the public to have access to the information necessary to judge the public officials’ credentials or performance in office,” said APOC Executive Director Heather Hebdon during the hearing, later adding, “This is what the statute tells you that needs to be disclosed. It’s not for APOC’s information; it’s for the public information.”

Ultimately, commissioners punted on the issue of confidentiality.

They agreed that the state’s filing system could be on the arcane side of things, allowing Taylor to file in a format befitting someone with 200+ renters (I believe that list, when it's uploaded, which it isn't, will be one of those forms you have to directly request). They found that since Taylor had never officially asked in writing for the renters’ names to be kept secret, it wouldn’t rule on that. That means, at least for now, regulators expect him to file the complete list of renters as part of his financial disclosure (which he has yet to file).

"Although there was some discussion at the September 10, 2025, hearing whether Attorney General Taylor is required to produce the full names of all tenants, the Commission does not believe that such a request has been sufficiently raised by either the Attorney General or APOC Staff pursuant to (regulations). In the event Attorney General Taylor seeks to withhold tenant information from public disclosure, he shall formulate his position in writing for Commission review."

You can find APOC's order on the case here.

A few other things about Treggarick

• Treg (real name Treggarick) and his wife, Jodi, are also key figures in the push for pseudo-privatization of Alaska’s public education system that I’ve written about at length, advocating for near-nonexistent oversight of the state’s homeschool and charter programs to redirect public education funding to private and religious schools. Jodi Taylor penned a notorious op-ed laying out the specific steps to game the system, which has fueled a lawsuit challenging the practice.
• Treg Taylor has rarely found a right-wing culture-war issue that he hasn’t wanted to sign onto. That’s included joining other GOP Attorneys General that would force states to release abortion records to other states. He also scared pharmacies in Alaska away from carrying mifepristone, despite it being legal here. And don’t get him started about anti-trans issues.
• One of his final acts in office was to sign off on a letter justifying the appointment of Attorney John W. Wood to the non-attorney spot on the judge-selecting Alaska Judicial Council (a part of a larger effort to override the non-partisan, merit-based system currently in place).

Other developments

• Conservative media personality Bernadette Wilson is the first to round out her ticket with a running mate. Earlier this month, she announced that she’s selected Wasilla Republican Sen. Mike “Dozer” Shower, the Senate Minority Leader, as her pick for lieutenant governor.
• Former Matanuska-Susitna Borough Planning Commissioner Roger “Bruce” Walden also joined the race. Walden ran as a write-in candidate for governor in 2022 after finishing in a distant seventh place in the primary. Find his launch video here.
• Mary Peltola’s still undecided on what, if anything, she’ll run for, but she’ll be hitting the fundraising circuit soon in support of state candidates.

Onto the rankings

Taylor’s entrance to the race pretty much rounds out the Republican names expected to run. The muddled field doesn’t paint a picture of much Republican unity heading into the replacement of Dunleavy, especially since most candidates are essentially pledging more of the same (which the public isn’t enthralled with) if they’re elected. While Taylor certainly brings the highest profile of any of the candidates to the race — thanks in large part to his use of state resources to court reactionary conservatives nationwide — there’s considerable dissent among Republicans that he’s actually well-suited to take the state’s reins.

Meanwhile, Democrats are essentially still sitting on the sidelines while waiting to hear what former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola is going to do in the 2026 election (whether it be a run for Congress or governor). They’re still left with former state Sen. Tom Begich as their lone candidate in the race, and Begich says he’ll drop out if Peltola gets in. No independents have filed, either.

So, without further ado, let’s see how they all stack up according to the Votable Index Based Entirely on Science (VIBES) analysis that I developed in partnership with The Alaska Current. Find the previous ranking here.

State of the Race

1. Click Bishop

Pros: Moderate, labor-friendly Republican that Democrats could live with.

Cons: Reviled by the Alaska Republican Party for being a moderate, labor-friendly Republican that Democrats can live with. That said, I keep getting asked about when he's actually gonna start campaigning in earnest.

2. Tom Begich

Pros: A Begich and the only Democrat in the race.

Cons: A Begich and the only Democrat in the race.

3. Bernadette Wilson and Mike Shower (+3)

Pros: An ultra-MAGA mudslinger who understands that grievance and alternate facts go a long way in today’s modern political world.

Cons: Sen. Mike Shower — who’s one of the most chronically absent from the Capitol — is not bringing a whole lot to the ticket.

4. Treggarick “Treg” Taylor (new)

Pros: Did not resign for being a sex pest, as his two predecessors did.

Cons: An ultra-wealthy right-wing true believer who’s more than happy to bend the rules of the law to fit his politics. He also has no problem with using public school funding to pay for his children’s private and religious education, despite the Alaska Constitution prohibiting the use of public school money for such purposes.

5. Shelley Hughes (-1)

Pros: Has a finger on the pulse of whatever’s the latest Republican panic factory, whether it be trans kids in sports or trans kids in general.

Cons: Considers right-wing Anchorage Republicans too moderate for her.

6. Edna DeVries (-1)

Pros: Has a lot of experience.

Cons: She’ll be 85 by the time she’s sworn in, a point that Republican media has seemed to fixate on following her filing, suggesting she doesn’t have the right blessings.

7. Adam Crum (-4)

Pros: The oil industry has a lot of money, and Crum once appeared to be the chosen one.

Cons: May or may not have done something untoward to benefit the oil industry. Also, doesn’t seem to have the party’s blessing anymore.

8. Matt Heilala (-1)

Pros: He has a big RV plastered with his campaign logo, and he is also one of the leading forces of anti-trans panic in Alaska.

Cons: So far, a one-note candidate who’s giving Bear Doctor vibes.

9. James William Parkin IV (-1)

Pros: He is ostensibly a working-class-focused guy with his support for bigger PFDs, funded schools and public employee pensions.

Cons: In an academic sense, the problem is how you pay for it all. In a political sense, he’s about as out of line with the party powers as Bishop is, while also lacking the folksy appeal.

10. Roger “Bruce” Walden (new)

Pros: The only candidate to have technically run for governor before.

Cons: He finished seventh in the 2022 primary, and fewer than 1,000 voters wrote in any write-in candidate.

10. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom (-1)

Pros: Currently has an office that shares a floor with the governor.

Cons: Her exit from the race for U.S. House after being bullied by pretty much every right-wing power broker in the country isn’t a great look. Plus, she’s the least rabidly right-wing member of the Dunleavy administration to file to run for office.

Reading list

Murkowski votes no on partisan spending bills, seeks middle path

Both parties’ stop-gap spending bills failed. Sen. Murkowski says there’s still time to negotiate a solution to avoid a government shutdown.

AKPMLiz Ruskin

Alaska Republicans push for study of ranked choice voting in civil rights committee

Republicans on a committee advising the U.S. Civil Rights Commission say that Alaska’s voting system disenfranchises voters.

Anchorage Daily NewsIris Samuels

Violent racial threats are on the rise in Alaska, the NAACP Anchorage warns - The Alaska Current

The Anchorage branch of the NAACP said its members and their families have been targeted.

The Alaska Current - The Alaska CurrentMatt Acuña Buxton

An Alaska whale expert’s message in a bottle washed up in Scotland, years after his death

John Craighead George had a tradition of sending out messages in bottles after each whale census. This is just the second known to be found.

KNBAAlena Naiden

Mat-Su Assembly votes to add Kirk memorial statement to official borough election guide

The statement also recognizes “other victims of political violence.”

Mat-Su SentinelAmy Bushatz

And stories that won't generate previews for some reason:

• Long-term study shows religion among Alaskans is declining, mirroring nationwide trends
• Murkowski: Help for health care, public broadcasting, is needed in shutdown-averting budget plan
• Trump cuts to University of Alaska programs for Native students worse than previously announced

Weekend Watching

In a world of escalating everything, here's a nice, mellow portrait of a kind soul.

Have a nice weekend, y'all. And don't forget to be kind.