By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 19, 2026 – For weeks, a political group calling itself “Conservative Alaska” spent heavily attacking conservative gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson while presenting itself to voters as a grassroots conservative organization. The group was a mystery, but no more.
A campaign finance report filed one day after Alaska’s primary election reveals that organized labor was helping finance the operation.
An Alaska Public Offices Commission report filed Wednesday shows that the Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 341 PAC contributed $5,000 to Conservative Alaska. The contribution was made by check on Aug. 11 — one week before Election Day — but was not publicly disclosed by the group until Aug. 19, after voting had concluded.
Until that filing appeared, Conservative Alaska’s disclosed money had come entirely from John Richard Carr, a Mat-Su construction company owner who serves as the group’s chairman.
The organization’s website identified Carr as its top contributor and carried two prominently featured attacks on Wilson, including claims that she had supported Sen. Lisa Murkowski and was “not the leader Alaska deserves.”
Wilson has never voted for or supported Murkowski. When she was state director for Americans for Prosperity, she was filmed trying to manage an activist who was interrupting an AFP event at which Murkowski had made an unannounced visit. The group tried to make it look like Wilson was protecting the US senator.
Conservative Alaska reported $10,000 in activity in an Aug. 6 filing and another $10,250 in its seven-day report filed Aug. 11. Its attack advertising became one of the most aggressive efforts aimed at Wilson during the closing weeks of the crowded gubernatorial primary.
The Alaska Landmine described the first commercial as a “brutal attack ad” and reported that Conservative Alaska was chaired by Carr.
But the latest filing adds an important piece of information that voters did not have before casting their ballots: The group bearing the “Conservative Alaska” name was also receiving money from one of Alaska’s most politically active labor unions.
The $5,000 contribution came from the political action committee of Laborers Local 341, an Anchorage-based union representing workers in construction and other industries. Local 341 has been active in Alaska elections and has supported candidates aligned with organized labor.
The union has also been involved in other closely watched Republican races. Rep. Zack Fields, an Anchorage Democrat who works for Local 341, was seen campaigning in Eagle River for Ruby Jones, the union-backed newly minted Republican challenger to conservative Rep. Jamie Allard.
That timing allowed Conservative Alaska to continue attacking Wilson under a conservative-sounding banner through Election Day without voters knowing that union political money had entered the organization.
The APOC filing can be viewed here.
3 thoughts on “Dirty politics: Labor union money revealed behind ‘Conservative Alaska’ group that attacked Bernadette Wilson”
Good. Wilson has them scared and running.
Click Bishop is history, right where he should be. His donors are primarily a conglomeration of union money, Carpenters and Operating Engineers included. Bishop is an arrogant left-wing kook trying to convince people, including conservative union members, that he was always a Republican. But Bishop has little appeal to the majority of voters, and ultimately, he fooled very few people. His constituency was always the well-brainwashed rank and file union members and Interior Natives (which his wife is one). One of Bishop’s recent campaign mailers touts his experience as an “apprenticeship trainer.” It’s a reference to the 25 years he spent with Local 302 of the Operating Engineers, a union run out of Seattle, Washington, in which he became one of the union bosses’ good old boys up in Fairbanks. Click didn’t have the courage to include this information on his mailer because he was afraid people would think he was a 100% union man and a radical Democrat, trying to fool the public. Bishop is a fraud through and through. Thank goodness the voters said NO to Click Bishop. His governorship would have been a complete disaster.
BTW, it was Click Bishop himself who gave the go-ahead to begin attack ads on Bernadette Wilson. Click is such an arrogant POS that he already thought he was governor and that Bernadette needed to be taught a lesson in politics.
I hope Bernadette has a long memory about this.
Heard lots of stories about Clickie this summer. How about the one where he almost killed an.underaged high school kid who he put in his race boat without the parents consent. The kid was seriously injured. Clickie never even had the fortitude to face the parents and apologize. What an irresponsible jerk. And Clickie wanted to be governor. We wish Bernadette would have brought this up during the campaign.. This kind of behavior really turns off the public.