Independent candidate Bill Hill, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III, speaks at a campaign event held Oct. 22, 2026, at Fire Island Bakery in downtown Anchorage, a few blocks from the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center, site of the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
In the last days before Election Day, the Alaska Democratic Party is making a request: Don’t vote for the Democratic candidate in the U.S. House race.
Eric Hafner, the lone Democrat in the four-candidate House election, is in federal prison for threatening federal officials and isn’t expected to be released until 2036.
Since July, the Democratic Party has been supporting independent candidate Bill Hill, who is now the lead challenger to incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich III.
“The Democratic Party has enthusiastically endorsed Bill Hill,” said Eric Croft, chair of the state party.
As Hill campaigns across the state, Democratic officials have been working with him, trying to tell voters that they believe Hafner’s candidacy is a Republican-backed sham.
Yellow signs emblazoned with the words “Don’t be tricked! Eric Hafner: In Prison in New York” dot lawns across the state.
“I think Bill wants to bring a kind of that independent coalition spirit that we have in the (state) legislature here,” Croft said.
Despite the fact that Hafner would be ineligible to serve — the U.S. Constitution requires a member of the House to live in the state when they are elected — he’s nonetheless polling in the high single digits, near the margin between Begich and Hill. Libertarian Jim McDermott is the fourth candidate in the race.
Hill, who has never run for statewide public office before, has been trying to campaign on two levels — introducing himself to voters who have never heard of him before, and informing them about Hafner.
“I think there are a lot of people who are doing the groundwork for us, and our campaign’s doing everything we can to ensure that when we send messages to voters, that we make a clear distinction between Nick Begich and myself, and also add that Eric Hafner is not a true Democrat. He’s really there to help out a Republican campaign,” Hill said on Thursday before an event in Juneau.
Third-party groups have also spent more than $450,000 against Hafner, according to Federal Elections Commission filings tallied by the website OpenSecrets.
Hafner has never lived in Alaska and ran unsuccessfully for Alaska’s House seat in 2024. The Democratic Party sued, trying to get him off the ballot, and the Alaska Republican Party fought to keep him on it, putting him in position to act as a spoiler against then-Rep. Mary Peltola’s re-election campaign.
The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in Hafner’s favor, and Begich defeated Peltola. Hafner, who was backed by advertising from a national Republican campaign group, was not decisive in that defeat. He earned a little over 1% of the vote.
The next year, Hafner ran in a special U.S. House election in Florida.
Now, he’s running again in Alaska.
Reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission show he hasn’t raised or spent any money on his campaign, but third-party groups appear to be working in support of him.
Ahead of the August primary election, some Alaska voters received anonymous pro-Hafner text messages that contained none of the disclosure language required by federal law.
Similar messages have popped up again in the past week, as early voting takes place ahead of the general election.
“I think the reason you’re seeing so much money behind Hafner is (opponents are) belatedly realizing Bill Hill, a real independent, progressive independent, if you will, can win,” Croft said.
Alaska’s U.S. Senate race was rocked by a New York Times article this week that revealed independent candidate Dan J. Sullivan had been recruited by Democratic campaigners who wanted him to act as a spoiler for Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan’s re-election campaign.
The Beacon asked Begich by text message on Thursday: Did he or anyone he knows encourage Hafner to run?
“Absolutely not,” Begich said. “No one on my campaign team has ever even made contact with him or would even know how to.”
Earlier this month, Begich and Hill participated in a televised debate that illustrated the differences between the two men.
Begich promoted his success in Congress. He’s set a record for the most legislation enacted by a freshman legislator in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives.
He also highlighted his support for increased oil and gas drilling on federal land in the state and an amendment to federal law that will steer more revenue from that drilling to the state.
“The nation needs these resources as well. Not just because it lowers the cost of energy, but it also helps to reduce the pressure that’s being applied to us down in Juneau for an income tax or a statewide sales tax. A huge portion of our state revenue comes directly from oil and gas royalties and production taxes, the more we produce, the better our state does,” Begich said.
During the debate and again on Thursday in Juneau, Hill criticized Begich’s votes in favor of the Iran war, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“We need somebody who understands what the cost of fuel is doing to Alaskans, the loss of health care, and the fact that Nick has continued to vote for the Iranian war and tariffs and against our healthcare in this state, and Alaskans just need to know that,” Hill said on Thursday.
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Courtesy of Alaska Beacon
