Suzanne Downing: Who is behind the odd anti-Dunleavy ad campaign? And why?

June 20, 2026 – For weeks upon weeks, Alaskans have been subjected to advertisements attacking Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

That is curious on its face: Dunleavy is term-limited. He is not running for governor in 2026. His name will not appear on the either the primary or general election ballot this year.

It all seems so poorly timed. Why spend all that money tearing down a man who is supposedly headed for the political exits?

Now it all makes sense. The campaign is not really about 2026. It is about 2028.

The 907 Initiative, a dark-money political advocacy organization, has been promoting what it brands the “Dunleavy Decline.” The message is that Dunleavy’s eight years have been a failure. They simply repeat the charge often enough to make that verdict stick before he has a chance to write the next chapter of his political life.

The 907 Initiative describes its vision as “progressive” and “forward-thinking.” Its current projects do things like attack Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan as “Yes-Man Dan,” criticize the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, promote increased government spending, and campaign against Dunleavy’s decisions. The organization solicits donations through ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform. Its own website makes its political orientation plain enough.

The group was founded in 2022 and is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. InfluenceWatch describes it as a left-of-center advocacy organization whose campaigns have targeted Republican or conservative public officials. Its earlier targets included former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and organizations supporting Dunleavy’s 2022 reelection. InfluenceWatch reports that it began with $341,000 in undisclosed funding and later received major contributions from progressive grant-making organizations associated with the Arabella Advisor universe.

The anti-Bronson campaign supplied the template.

For more than a year, the 907 Initiative bought television, radio and digital advertisements, newspaper space, mailers and yard signs attacking Bronson under the slogan “Incompetence has a price tag.” The campaign looked and sounded like conventional election advertising, but it stayed on the issue-advocacy side of the legal line.

Even Alaska Public Media reported that the advertisements resembled political attack ads while “carefully avoiding the line” that would activate campaign-finance disclosure requirements. The 907 Initiative’s executive director would not identify its financial backers.

Bronson subsequently lost his reelection campaign.

We are watching the same playbook now being aimed at Dunleavy, only this time the timetable is longer.

Here’s the reason: There has been persistent political chatter that Dunleavy could challenge Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2028. No one knows whether he will. Dunleavy may not know yet himself. Two years is an eternity in politics, but a campaign would start within one year.

Murkowski and her allies cannot afford to dismiss the possibility and waste this year. They can’t let him build a gasline, that’s for sure.

Dunleavy has won two statewide elections. He has maintained a strong following among conservative voters, and he would enter a Republican contest with the advantages of name recognition, an established fundraising network and eight years of executive experience. If his gasline initiative ultimately succeeds (and let’s face it, the Democrats will not allow that), he could also leave office with the largest economic-development achievement in modern Alaska history.

That would make him a formidable opponent for Murkowski. She knows it.

Let me be clear: I have seen no proof that Murkowski has directed, financed or coordinated the 907 Initiative’s campaign.

But Alaskans are entitled to look at the political landscape, study the incentives and ask the obvious question: Who benefits from destroying Dunleavy’s credibility before the 2028 campaign even begins?

Murkowski does. Alaska Democrats also do.

Ranked-choice voting has turned Murkowski into their preferred Republican. Democratic voters helped carry her through the ranked-choice general election in 2022, after Republicans overwhelmingly rejected her in their first-choice votes. She went back to Washington because Democrats ranked her ahead of Republican Kelly Tshibaka.

They brought Murkowski to the dance, and they will protect their investment.

We have seen this kind of anticipatory political maneuvering before. When Murkowski could no longer count on winning the support of Alaska’s Republican base, the political world surrounding her helped promote an election system that weakened party primaries and allowed Democrats to rescue her in November.

Ranked-choice voting became Murkowski’s political life-support system.

Now comes the next potential threat: Mike Dunleavy.

If Dunleavy might run in 2028, the safest strategy is not to wait until he announces in 2027. It is to begin degrading his reputation right now. Brand his administration as a decline. Blame him for every difficult budget decision. Deny him victories. Keep the attacks technically separated from a future election and avoid the donor transparency that would come with direct electioneering.

This is how you campaign without campaigning.

It also helps explain the intensity of the opposition to Dunleavy’s gasline effort. For some Democrats and members of the Senate coalition, giving Dunleavy a clean win on the gasline would be politically intolerable. A governor who leaves office having moved the long-promised Alaska LNG project into construction is much harder to dismiss as a failure.

Perhaps Dunleavy will retire from politics when his term ends. Perhaps the rumored Senate campaign will never materialize. But his political adversaries are not taking that chance. They are campaigning against a candidate who does not yet exist, in an election that is still more than two years away, using money whose sources ordinary Alaskans will never know.

Suddenly, the fixation on a term-limited governor is not so mysterious. The 2028 campaign for Senate has already begun.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.

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