Digital Ground Game June Midterm Report

Important elections in Alaska and
Trump's electoral influence campaign

This June, Digital Ground Game is using our monthly Midterms Report to explore the state of elections in Alaska as they enter their tourism season and provide updates on the impact of Trump’s endorsement of primary candidates as midterms approach. We also want to remind readers to keep an eye out for updates on the Watson v. RNC case currently being decided in the Supreme Court, which is likely to be released sometime this month. The Trump administration is arguing that mail-in ballots cannot be accepted after election day, regardless of postmarking. Our team will provide reminders in our future reports once the ruling comes out but depending on the results, those planning to use mail-in ballots this fall may need to mail their ballots up to two or three weeks before election day to ensure their vote doesn’t arrive late.

State Highlight: Alaska

Increasingly cited as one of Chuck Schumer’s sole successful recruited candidate, the high expectations for Mary Peltola have turned the Alaska Senate race into a key pillar of the Democratic Party’s Senate strategy. Polling shows a warming view of Peltola among Alaskans who reflect a consistent, if small, democratic advantage in the race ^[1]. Primaries for the state don’t take place until August 18th, but our team wanted to shine a light on the races ahead of time. Given Alaska’s unique election rules, using a top four jungle primary into a rank-choice vote, let’s give a quick rundown of how their system works before we get into the candidates.

Voting

A jungle primary or nonpartisan primary is a system where all candidates, regardless of party, participate in a unified primary election resulting in the top two candidates moving on to the general election. In this system, occasionally one party will over crowd the primary and dilute the party’s vote leading to both general candidates coming from a minority party. We’re currently seeing a risk of this in California’s race for governor. Alaska’s answer to this issue is its use of ranked choice voting allowing the top four candidates all to move on to the general election. Ranked choice voting is a system that allows voters to rank the candidates by order of preference. If one candidate does not receive at least 50% of the votes, then the election will have multiple rounds. For each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is removed. As a voter, if your first ranked pick gets removed then your vote counts for whoever you ranked second. This continues until a candidate holds over half of the votes ^[2]. Currently, Alaska is the only state that uses both jungle primaries and ranked choice voting in its federal office elections.

Senate

The incumbent Senator running for reelection, Dan Sullivan, is framed by the RNC as someone who “fights for Alaskans every day” ^[3] but polling as recent as March 2026 shows his job approval at only 36% ^[4]. While the race will undoubtedly be close,the pile of promising data only seems to grow as we approach the elections for this important race. While Alaska’s jungle primary system sends the top four candidates to the general for a rank-choice election, we will only go into detail on Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola, as all other candidates currently poll at less than 5%.

Dan Sullivan - R

Current incumbent Senator, Dan Sullivan, has a diverse resume both inside Alaska and out. After earning his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1993, Sullivan joined the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served until transitioning to the reserves in 1997. Once out of active duty, he began a roughly 16 year legal career holding various appointed roles in public service including, Alaska’s attorney general and later its commissioner of natural resources ^[5]. Following a narrow victory in 2014, Sullivan began his 12 years as Senator during which he served on a number of committees, including veterans’ affairs, public works, and commerce. Those reading Dan’s campaign website would be forgiven for being confused about his policy stances, much like the Ohio Senate candidates, Sullivan failed to include an issues tab on his site. Largely reading like a resume, the “Meet Dan” tab seems to push the image of a more moderate republican by highlighting his work on the Save Our Seas Act to fund an ocean cleanup effort and his pro-bono services helping victims of sexual assault. Entertainingly, these policies are framed as beyond the scope of republican issues which seems to imply that republicans don’t want to help assault victims. During my reading of Dan’s site, the aspect I found most emblematic of his desire for a moderate image is the absence of President Trump’s July 2025 endorsement on his “endorsements” tab ^[6]. I suspect his efforts will be insufficient for voters looking for a more independently spirited candidate which has a real possibility of being a roadblock to his campaign, considering that the majority of Alaska voters are nonpartisan or undeclared ^[7].

Mary Peltola - D

A candidate with more believable moderate bona fides is former representative Mary Peltola. Not only did she assist Senator Merkowski’s 2010 write-in campaign and receive her support during Peltola’s 2022 House race, but in the 2024 elections, she was the only democrat to be endorsed by the National Rifle Association ^[8]. While these elements of her political history would almost certainly kill a campaign in a blue state, many political commentators, including Tim Miller of the Bulwark, have cited taking heterodox positions as an under-appreciated strategy for Democrats to pick up seats in redder areas ^[9]. The Mary Peltola campaign website is generally quite well designed and easy to navigate. Her “priorities” tab is split into one section on affordability and one on “fixing the rigged system” which mostly deals with ethics reform and regulations. In my view, the affordability section is a tad under cooked, while she has some interesting ideas on shipping and energy policy, most of the section is non-specific. The section on reform came off as much more detailed and focused; she proposes term limits and a new Senate Ethics Office, among other policies that increase congressional accountability ^[10]. Mary Peltola seems to be quite skilled at taking more traditionally right-wing policies for herself and coming off as natural. It will be interesting to see how voters respond to her in November.

Strategy

Mary Peltola seems to be doing a good job so far of advocating for her policies but I think she would benefit from including the contrasting element of Dan Sullivan. Given Alaska’s red nature, it likely wouldn't be good to bring up Trump directly. Calling Sullivan a rubber stamp for the regime would serve the dual purpose of communicating that Dan isn't interested in Alaskans and highlights that he isn't the moderate he seems to want to present himself as. Laying out in detail all the service cuts and job losses hurting Alaskans because of the one big beautiful bill act that Sullivan signed could serve as a cutting opposition ad campaign.

Governor

The sitting governor of Alaska, Mike Dunleavy is term limited, meaning the normal incumbent advantage can’t easily be assumed in this race. Following his statements last summer, it’s not clear Dunleavy even intends to use his swing to influence the race, only noting that he hopes whoever replaces him will continue his projects and work with the Trump administration ^[11]. The lack of rallying around a Republican candidate and the crowded field is leading to a somewhat misleading polling environment where Democratic candidate Tom Begich appears to have a significant lead; however, when consolidated by party, the polls show a virtually even split between Republicans, Democrats, and undecided voters ^[12]. Because of the lack of a clear polling leader among the republican candidates, we’ll briefly cover the top three. The outcome of this race still depends on a cacophony of factors but the possibility of Alaska having its first Democratic Governor in 24 years is by no means off the table.

Tom Begich - D

The clear standout of the few Democratic candidates is former Alaska State Senator and singer/songwriter Tom Begich. During his time in office, 16 of the 25 bills Begich sponsored passed and he served as the chair of the Alaska Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee ^[13]. In 2022 he worked closely with the sitting governor to pass the Alaska Reads Act to improve reading levels in early education across the state. In addition to Tom’s own record, the Begich family as a whole is something of an Alaskan political dynasty. Since 1970, five members of the Begich family have held elected office ^[14]. The website for Begich’s campaign is comprehensive to a fault; it offers a lot of information for those willing to go through it but may pose a real risk of turning away voters intimidated by the amount of reading required. Tom’s “issues” tab is formatted quite nicely, splitting policy into education, economics, energy, and a miscellaneous section labeled “Tom’s vision”. The energy section was particularly interesting. Begich appears to be using the term “new energy” to distance himself from the stigma that green energy has given the state’s economic reliance on fossil fuel production. An underlying theme throughout his policy platform is an interest in increasing government transparency, as reflected in his legislative history in the state Senate ^[15].

Bernadette Wilson - R

Wildly shifting in favorability across the polls, Bernadette Wilson’s online presence is spotty at best. She doesn't have a Wikipedia page at all and her Ballotpedia biography section is empty so researching her outside of her campaign site had to come primarily from articles and interviews. Wilson is the owner of Denali Disposal, a private trash collection service in Anchorage and claims the visage of a political outsider despite her long record of legislative advocacy and her time as interim executive director of conservative think tank, Alaska Policy Forum ^[16]. Bernadette Wilson is one of only a handful of Alaskan politicians who isn't attempting to run to the center in one way or another, and her campaign site seems to display that proudly. Her brief bio name drops multiple partisan favorites, including opposing the COVID-19 lockdowns and wanting to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting system, a policy that passed with a two-thirds majority in 2020 and overcame the 2024 repeal attempt already ^[17]. Wilson’s issues tab is limited to some unspecific education policy and a pledge to cut government jobs to restore the permanent fund dividend, a sort of sovereign wealth fund based on Alaskan oil revenues ^[18].

Click Bishop - R

Former Labor Commissioner and state senator, Click Bishop, won his 2012 state Senate race as the only candidate who didn’t sign the pledge not to join the bipartisan coalition of moderates leading the state congress at the time. His time in the Alaska Senate is marked by both imaginative legislating and repeated attacks from the state’s Republican Party establishment for his image as a swing vote ^[19]. Of all the candidates portraying themselves as bipartisan, Click’s bona fides appear to be the most deserved, even choosing a registered nonpartisan as his running mate. His campaign website is somewhat lackluster with some brief policy goals, but charitably speaking, his legislative history supports the idea that he can back up his goals with follow through ^[20].

Dave Bronson - R

Former Anchorage Mayor and U.S. Air Force veteran Dave Bronson currently leads by a hair according to the above poll he sponsored. Bronson has the air of a more traditional conservative candidate with his running mate’s and his military history, but those willing to read deeper will find their more extremist bent. The policy page of his campaign website is impressively detailed, linking to multiple page documents on each policy. While detailed policy planning is generally good, the volume buries more extreme policies like school vouchers, voter ID laws, and mail-in vote restrictions ^[21]. Over half of Alaska votes by mail so his proposals for not accepting mail ballots after election day have the potential to kill a massive number of otherwise eligible ballots.

Strategy

Alaska has a fairly unique political climate, which makes it hard to say what tactics would have a strong effect. From my reading, Click Bishop appears to be the most electable Republican to the degree that he will likely receive some portion of Democratic voters. For this reason, it may be prudent to push him out of the top four for generals if you are confident people will be turned off by a more extreme candidate. Running ads about Bishop being censured by the Alaska Republican Party in 2022 for voting against the party platform or highlighting his running mate being a nonpartisan might be enough to turn off more conservative voters. After the primaries, running ads highlighting Bronson and Wilson’s policies on election reform that would make voting harder would probably help shore up support among more rural voters, who would be the people most affected by such a policy. This last one is a serious long shot but assuming bishop is in the final four, forming a first/second rank choice alliance with him might be possible and bring more conservative voters on board. Such an alliance could include a promised position in the winner’s administration. This could be appealing to Bishop considering he was reported to have commented that addressing the budget issues of Alaska would require a bigger role than Congress can offer, shortly before ending his final term in 2024 ^[19].

Trump's pressure influencing primaries

Coming into this year’s midterm season, whether or not Trump’s endorsement would still hold the power to swing primaries was an open question. A number of races this month have illuminated a fealty to Trump still thriving in Republican voters. We wanted to give a quick rundown of those elections before we wrap up this month’s report.

Indiana State Senators

After Trump’s call for redistricting last fall, Indiana's Congress drafted redistricting bill 31-19, which was blocked on December 11th in the State Senate. Seven of the Republican Senators who voted against the bill were heavily targeted for replacement by more loyal candidates. Early last month, five of the seven were defeated in their primaries ^[22].

• District 1: Dan Dernulc was replaced by Trevor De Vries
• District 11: Linda Rogers was replaced by Brian Schmutzler
• District 19: Travis Holdman was replaced by Blake Fiechter
• District 21: James Buck was replaced by Tracey Powell
• District 41: Greg Walker was replaced by Michelle Davis

Senator Cassidy

Senator Cassidy is someone Trump has held a grudge against since he voted in favor of conviction during the impeachment hearings over the January 6th insurrection. This is widely believed to have led to Trump’s endorsement of his opponent, Julia Letlow. On May 16th, Cassidy was unsuccessful in his primary reelection bid ^[23].

Representative Massie

Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie has been a thorn in Trump’s side for a while now, but the fervor to oust him escalated significantly following Massie’s efforts to release the Epstein files last fall. Trump’s decision to endorse a virtual no-name candidate, Ed Gallrein, was initially somewhat baffling but ultimately paid off with Massie’s defeat on May 19th ^[24]. While Gallrein landed the nomination, the amount of help he needed to get him there makes this race the most expensive House of Representatives seat in history ^[25].

Senator Cornyn

The strangest target of Trump’s ire here has to be Senator John Cornyn. Speculation seems to land on a combination of some of Cornyn’s past statements dismissing Trump and Paxton’s enthusiasm for the SAVE America Act, leading to Paxton receiving the coveted endorsement on May 19th ^[26].  It seems unlikely that Trump's endorsement alone could be responsible for the final margin of the race, but Cornyn was defeated in the May 26th primary runoff.

Closer

One last reminder to readers to keep an eye out for the ruling on the Watson v. RNC case in the Supreme Court. This case will have a significant impact on federal voting rules, so we will include an update in our next report on it. If you want more immediate, real time updates on Digital Ground Game, be sure to keep an eye on our website or join our Discord, where you can talk to our staff directly about news and upcoming projects.