Independent candidate Bill Hill will be heading into the final stretch of the race for Alaska’s lone US House seat with extra help in his corner.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Tuesday added Hill to its “Red to Blue” program, which aims to provide additional support and campaign know-how to candidates in winnable races. Fueled in part by the latest spike in fuel prices, Democrats are feeling increasingly strong about expanding their electoral map, including in Hill’s race against Republican US Rep. Nick Begich III.
Hill, a commercial fisherman and former school superintendent, is the most notable recent addition, not only because he isn’t a Democrat, but also because he has not committed to caucusing with Democrats.
But listen to Hill’s list of goals if elected, and it doesn’t sound like there’s much from the last two years of complete Republican control of Congress that Hill would support.
“I will maintain that the people that I will be working with in Congress are the people who are going to be working to drive down the cost of health care … realize that public education is an important institution in our nation … want to drive down the costs of living in Alaska … [and] who are not going to vote for these haphazard tariffs or another war in the Middle East,” he said in an interview in June.
That was a theme Hill has continued to hammer Begich and Republicans over, including at Saturday’s fisheries debate in Kodiak.
“Alaska fishermen have been hit really hard by a lot of the activities that have happened across this world, you know,” Hill said. “I don’t know how many of you have been impacted by tariffs or the outcomes of the Iran war, but the fuel costs that I paid this summer were $2 a 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 really allow our crews to do good work for us while we’re fishing hard.”
Fuel prices have become a key issue in Alaska’s congressional races, with the latest escalation in the war in Iran pushing diesel prices to record highs, while gasoline prices are above $5 throughout much of the state.
Polling has shown that Hill’s biggest hurdle will be name recognition, with one poll indicating he had a significant advantage once voters learned more about him and his positions. His name recognition issue is something the campaign hopes to overcome after launching its first TV ads last week.
To the Hill campaign, the DCCC’s support shouldn’t be all that surprising.
“National groups are catching on to what Alaskans have known for months: Bill is building the campaign to beat Nick Begich and fight for an Alaska that works for hardworking Alaskans, not billionaires,” said Kevin Groh, Hill’s campaign manager, in a prepared statement. “A broad coalition of Alaskans — Independents, Republicans, Libertarians, and Democrats — from Ketchikan to Kotzebue is ready for change and to hold Begich accountable for his broken promises.”
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.
