OPINION: How not to win

Published 4:30 am Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Alaska’s Republican leaders are steering straight toward defeat and pretending the road is clear. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich have staked their political futures on a national party sinking under the weight of its own contradictions and crumbling walls. Conflict abroad. Debt at home. Rising costs. Corruption ignored. Alaskans are paying the price.

Supporting another, much longer than promised, foreign conflict many now call a war, defending $4.50 and rising fuel, and staying silent about corruption in Washington do not sell in a state that measures politics by results, not slogans. Sullivan and Begich may call their loyalty to the national party “discipline,” but it looks more like surrender. This is not a plan for leading Alaska. It is a slow-motion collapse dressed up as confidence.

Start with the Iran heightened conflict. Sullivan and Begich have carried water for an administration that turned a dangerous moment into a possible long-term conflict. Alaskans have sent generations to war and know the cost. They see the familiar pattern: promises of quick victory, rising casualties, and global instability that drives up oil prices while squeezing household budgets. Calling that “strength” insults every Alaskan voter who fills a truck at today’s rising pump prices. And when the delegation votes against War Powers resolutions designed to restore congressional authority, they are not defending Alaska. They are defending a beleaguered and diminished President.

At home, Sullivan and Begich’s economic record reads no better. Alaska once led debates about fiscal restraint and smart resource policy. Now its delegation cheers record federal borrowing and energy market manipulations that undercut the independence Alaskans prize. Critics argue tariffs have hurt seafood exports, driven up shipping costs, and squeezed small manufacturers across the state.

The damage is not ideological; it is personal. It is borne by dockworkers, contractors, and families in the Interior and Southeast who wonder why their representatives keep defending policies that diminish their livelihood.

Then there is immigration theater.

Sullivan and Begich echo Washington’s hard-edged rhetoric while remaining silent as masked federal agents, in large cities in the lower-48, conduct operations using questionable legal authority, stopping people on the street and demanding papers. Alaska voters distrust heavy government intrusion. They see through grandstanding that threatens freedom more than it protects it.

The word “conservative” has lost its meaning in Sullivan’s and Begich’s hands. Sullivan helped pass spending packages that fiscal watchdogs flagged as budget-busting, then turned around and blamed Washington dysfunction for the results. Begich campaigns on kitchen-table economics while supporting federal outlays that pile debt onto the families he claims to champion. Alaskans are not fooled. They understand that borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today is not fiscal responsibility. It is a bill their children will settle.

Worst of all is the silence on corruption. Sullivan and Begich rarely speak when their own party’s scandals dominate the headlines: in-sider trading running wild, officials steering contracts, oversight committees shut down, allies excused from accountability. Alaska voters know what integrity looks like.

They remember past outstanding Alaskan politicians who carried this state’s interests with grit and fought Washington when it needed fighting.

What they see now is timidity, not leadership.

Social policy deepens the isolation. Arguments against reproductive rights, LGBTQ protections, and ballot access may stir donors in the Lower 48, but they alienate the Alaska voters who prize individual freedom above federal interference. This is a libertarian-leaning state, not a culture-war battleground. When our Republicans in Washington forget that, they forget Alaska itself.

Sullivan and Begich have placed their chips on a losing table. They mistake obedience for strength and confuse outrage for policy. A delegation that votes for war, deficit spending, tariffs, and silence cannot claim to protect Alaska values. A party that calls itself conservative while wildly spending and creating record debt and deficits cannot claim fiscal integrity. And a team that speaks of liberty while backing government overreach cannot call itself Alaskan.

Alaskan Republicans in Congress have built their own monument to failure, stacking war, corruption, inflation, debt, and denial until the weight crushes the structure beneath it. What once looked like discipline now looks like arrogance if not stupidity. They mistook defiance for direction and are now living with the consequences.

Beyond their crumbling walls, a different Alaska is taking shape. Voters have learned to separate loyalty from leadership. They want competence, honesty, and independence: the qualities that once defined this state’s politics. November will not only close a chapter of failure. War abroad. Debt at home. Corruption ignored. This time, Alaskans will answer. Vote in November.

Van Abbott is a long time resident of Alaska and regular opinion writer for the Juneau Empire. He has held management positions in government organizations in Ketchikan, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. He served in the Peace Corps in the late sixties as a teacher.