One of the underappreciated elements of the “Polar Payoff” that helped secure the Alaska Delegation’s votes for Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill — or, as U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan called it some 15 times during his annual address last week, the “Working Families Tax Cuts Act” — is that much of it was aimed at delaying, not stopping, the worst of it from hitting the state until after the 2026 elections.
Some of the biggest cliffs for Alaskans, particularly around social safety net spending, won’t be fully felt by the state until after this year’s elections, when the Alaska Delegation’s two most Trump-aligned members, Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III, are on the ballot. The work requirements contained in the bill, which critics warn are more of a costly bureaucratic burden than a meaningful attempt to get people good-paying jobs, are expected to cause as many as 12,000 Alaskans to lose Medicaid coverage.
That’s a greater margin than what either Sullivan or Begich had when they were first elected to office.
Those work requirements won’t take effect until Dec. 31 at the earliest, and Congress also carved out the option for Alaska to continue to push off the deadline until 2028, though that waiver process has yet to be released.
“That is not a Medicaid cut,” Sullivan said in defense of the work requirements, despite the experience in other states that showed people are more likely to struggle keeping up with the paperwork than actually complying with the work and volunteer requirements. “That is a choice from that individual.”
The state’s also going to be on the hook for millions of dollars more to run the state’s food stamp program. The state’s already expected to cough up $10.7 million for the program, but delayed penalties would inflate the state’s cost by over $42 million. Advocates warn that states like Alaska, where the budget is already in trouble, won’t be able to make up those funding gaps and will ultimately be required to tighten eligibility, cutting people off.
But like with Medicaid, those are all problems for future years.
Still, despite Republicans’ efforts to insulate members from the fallout of Trump’s policies ahead of the consequential 2026 election, Alaskans have already been feeling the pinch — and it’s showing in their slumping polling.
Trump’s first year back in office has produced a litany of bad-news headlines that have far outweighed the promises of beefed-up resource extraction industries that Sullivan touted throughout his speech.
The state’s ferry system is poised to run out of money after the feds skipped issuing a key grant; the public media system that serves as a critical communication system in rural communities was gutted; Fort Greely struggled to feed its soldiers for months amid federal cuts; private health insurance costs skyrocketed for the nearly 29,000 Alaskans who directly buy coverage after Republicans allowed subsidies to expire; a litany of energy projects were canceled amid a crackdown on “woke” renewables; 70,000 Alaskans saw their food stamps delayed after Republicans pushed the country into a shutdown by refusing to negotiate on health insurance costs; disaster response, including critical tsunami warning system, also saw deep cuts.
Alaskans across the state were also shocked last week when ICE agents arrested and quickly deported a Soldotna kindergartener, his mother and two siblings. At his annual address, Sullivan praised law enforcement and the president’s immigration crackdown, but claimed that he had no knowledge of the case.
“Yeah. I mean. I’m not aware of that one,” he said, claiming that he would look into the case and see what he could do.
The family was deported less than 24 hours later.
At a time when Alaskans are increasingly angry with the Trump administration, Begich and Sullivan have retreated to generally friendly, pro-resource-development audiences. In comments following his address to the Legislature, Sullivan was dismissive of Alaskans’ concerns about the direction of the country under Trump.
“The town hall thing, in my view, is a little bit of a red herring. … What they do is look for theater and viral moments,” he said. “Look at some of what happens in the Lower 48, they have people yelling at you, and the people who actually want to come and engage get drowned out.”
Alaskans, it appears, are paying attention.
While Sullivan’s low-profile approach to Congress has typically kept his approval numbers in the positive, they’ve quickly eroded under the Trump administration. According to polling released earlier this month, Sullivan’s favorability has dipped into the negative territory, with 50% of Alaskans holding an unfavorable view of him, while 47% were on board. In that same poll, only 41% of respondents said they supported his re-election.
A congressional tracking poll by Morning Consult also found that Sullivan’s disapproval numbers are among the highest since they started tracking them, currently at 47%, while just 39% approved of the job he’s doing.
Several recent polls have found that Democratic challenger former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola holds a slight edge against Sullivan, even though she’s recently joined the race.
Numbers around the one-term Rep. Begich are harder to come by, but head-to-head polling with his challengers, Rev. Matt Schultz, a Democrat, and Bill Hill, an independent, have both been favorable for the challengers. In an “informed ballot” where poll respondents are given some information on each candidate, Hill’s campaign says he has a 5% lead over Begich. Prior to receiving that information, the polling gave Begich a slight lead over both candidates.
Alaska’s elections are conducted under an open primary system, in which the top four candidates from the primary advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. The general election then uses ranked-choice voting to allow candidates to rank the candidates according to their preferences, to ensure that like-minded candidates don’t automatically play spoiler.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
