Alaska Considers Economic Suicide

The state has prospered under Trump, and the vulnerable Sen. Dan Sullivan deserves credit.

‘Build the line! Build the line! Build the line!” The chant roars through the sports center as Sen. Dan Sullivan revs up the crowd. It’s unleashed again when President Trump occupies the stage for his Tuesday midterm rally.

The crowd is cheering a proposed 800-mile liquefied-natural-gas pipeline that would mean jobs, energy and a cash bonanza for the state. It’s a project politicians have failed to deliver for decades, but it’s tantalizingly close to approval. That is, if Alaskans don’t vote on Nov. 3 for political and economic suicide.

That’s the choice in the Senate election here, the message the incumbent, Mr. Sullivan, needs to land if he wants to beat Democrat Mary Peltola. Alaskans are as bitter as lower-48ers about affordability (prices are even higher in this remote state), and many voters are unenthusiastic about rewarding the party in charge. Mr. Sullivan’s mission is to remind Alaska—a state almost wholly at the mercy of federal policy—that things could be worse. That a vote for Mrs. Peltola is a vote to re-empower a left determined to kill the Alaskan economy. And a vote to dismiss the only Alaskan senator with the president’s ear.

That’s no easy feat given an opponent who is capably capitalizing on short voter memories. Mrs. Peltola is the state’s best-known Democrat—having represented Alaska in the House from 2022 to 2025. Yet on the stump you might not know she’s ever heard of Chuck Schumer. She’s leaning into her Native Alaskan roots, positioning herself as uniquely cognizant of the state’s needs. She excoriates...

I read it. No telling. Between the natives voting for their own kind and that 2nd Sullivan being on the ballot the good guy could be in jeopardy. Another pipeline and expanding ANWR-will it help everyone or just a few? I do remember one Governor Palin arranging a rebate from oil profits. Perhaps a buck or two from the revenue of every barrel EXTRACTED as opposed to ‘profits’. That way an accountant can’t say they made no money.

Alaskans may end up thinking of oil companies as colonizers of yonder lore. We need to combat that.

“Every Alaskan gets a yearly check from all of that energy production.”

I don’t know the average amount of the Permanent Fund checks now (it varies), but back in the ‘80s the checks were pretty good — over $1K, IIRC.

Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) amounts by year:

2026: $1,200
2025: $1,000
2024: $1,702
2023: $1,312
2022: $3,284
2021: $1,114
2020: $992
2019: $1,606
2018: $1,600
2017: $1,100
2016: $1,022
2015: $2,072

https://pfd.alaska.gov/Division-Info/summary-of-dividend-applications-payments

Mr. Sullivan’s mission is to remind Alaska -- a state almost wholly at the mercy of federal policy -- that things could be worse. That a vote for Mrs. Peltola is a vote to re-empower a left determined to kill the Alaskan economy.

Some of these arguments may fall on deaf ears.

The financial viability of this pipeline project increased dramatically when it was made eligible for Federal loan guarantees under the Biden administration.

The politics up there are strange. As others have pointed out, the state competes with West Virginia around the world for the honor of being the jurisdiction outside the UK with the most white people on welfare.

According to AI:

The amount varies each year based on legislative decisions and fund performance, with the most recent 2025 dividend set at $1,000 per person. This is the lowest amount since 2020, though the program's historical average payout is approximately $1,229 annually.

So, based on the assumption that is an accurate result, it has shrank by a little more than 25%. Most likely that reduction was caused by policies that were enacted under the Biden Administration that lowered production of Alaskan oil for the sake of the false religious alternative, Mother Gaia & Climate Change.

The biggest election problem for Alaskans is the vote counting system they use. It is called Rank Choice Voting or RCV. It is a system that uses numerical algorithms to recycle your vote from your original candidate into the count of someone that you may not have wanted to vote for at all. Historically it has produced democRAT winners in a statistically unlikely number of occasions.

It was of course, invented by a coalition of democRATs. I believe it to be unconstitutional as it in violation of the one-person one vote rule.

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