The document disappeared from Hill’s website, but not before it was captured by The Alaska Story. Then, leading Democrat Matt Schultz suspended his campaign and endorsed Hill
By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 19, 2026 – Bill Hill’s campaign had a clearly stated objective for Alaska’s Aug. 18 congressional primary: Advance Hill to the November election without any Democratic candidates beside him.
That strategy was spelled out in a June 30 campaign document posted on the media section of Hill’s own website. Hill is an undeclared candidate who has stated publicly he will caucus with the Democrats in Congress. His website had a section under the “Media” tab that was a signaling document, allowing the campaign to tell super PACs what the strategy and messaging was to be, without actually illegally coordinating with those super PACs.
“The north star goals for the primary are that Bill Hill is the top non-incumbent vote getter in the Primary election and moves on to the general with no Democratic candidates,” the document stated.
The emphasis on “no Democratic candidates” is what is key.
The campaign has now scrubbed the material from its website. But The Alaska Story captured the page weeks ago, before it disappeared. And it’s forever on the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine).
Bill Hill is supported indirectly by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, an Arabella network dark-money group that brought ranked-choice to Alaska. But now, while they say they support ranked-choice voting, they clearly don’t want Democrats to play in this race, because they very much understand how the system works. This means ranked-choice voting is now being used against Democrats by leftists like Bill Hill.
At the time the super PAC signaling post was made in June, Hill’s most significant obstacle was not Republican Congressman Nick Begich. It was Democrat Matt Schultz, the radical Anchorage pastor who was competing with Hill for many of the same donors, activists and anti-Begich voters.
Now Schultz is out.
Breaking: Matt Schultz suspends campaign
On Friday, Schultz suspended his campaign and urged Democrats and other voters opposed to Begich to support Hill. The move cleared Hill’s strongest competitor from the political left and accomplished a central part of the strategy described on Hill’s website.
Schultz said defeating Begich and restoring a Democratic majority in the U.S. House had to take priority over his own candidacy. He also complained that institutions within the Democratic Party’s political ecosystem had declined to provide meaningful support for his campaign.
What Schultz apparently did not know, or at least did not disclose, was that Hill’s campaign had publicly identified the elimination of Democratic candidates as one of its “north star goals.”
Earlier in the campaign, Schultz attempted to build a bridge with Hill and promote the idea that both could run in parallel under Alaska’s top-four primary and ranked-choice general election system. Under that approach, both men could have advanced to November and encouraged their voters to rank the other as a second choice.
Hill’s internal strategy pointed in the opposite direction. It called for Hill to reach the general election with no Democrats at all.
The timing makes the now-deleted document particularly revealing. It was dated June 30, three days after Alaska’s formal candidate-withdrawal deadline. That meant the campaign’s objective was not necessarily to make Democrats disappear from the primary ballot, but to prevent them from finishing among the top four and advancing to November.
Political campaigns sometimes post unusually detailed strategic material on public-facing “media” pages. The practice is widely understood as a way to tell independent expenditure groups what messages, voters and objectives would be most useful to the campaign without holding private conversations that could violate federal prohibitions against coordination.
Hill’s document did more than state a broad desire to win. It identified the campaign’s preferred primary outcome and outlined how voters should be reached.
“All Persuadable Likely-Primary Voters need to see on linear, digital, via texting, and in the mail about Bill’s Broadly Targeted Message,” the document continued.
Super PACs may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose federal candidates, but their expenditures must remain independent. The Federal Election Commission uses a three-part test covering payment, content and conduct to determine whether a communication is illegally coordinated. Posting strategic information publicly does not, by itself, prove unlawful coordination.
But it provides outside groups with a campaign’s desired roadmap. It’s a wink-wink coordination proving that Hill’s campaign wanted a November ballot without Democrats, and he and announced that objective where outside spenders could see it.
Polling also helps explain why Schultz had to be removed as an obstacle to Hill.
Dark-money Alaska Center endorses Bill Hill over Matt Schulz, showing Democrat splintering
An April Alaska Survey Research poll placed Begich at 46%, Schultz at 28.9% and Hill at just 11.3%. More recent ranked-choice modeling from the same pollster showed Begich crossing 50% when the field narrowed to Begich, Schultz and Hill, with Schultz at 30.9% and Hill at 16.6%.
In an extrapolated head-to-head contest, Begich led Schultz 55.6% to 44.4%. Against Hill, Begich led 58.1% to 41.9%. In that analysis, Schultz, not Hill, was the stronger challenger.
Other polling has produced more favorable results for Hill, including a Tavern Research survey showing him running closer to Begich in a hypothetical two-person contest. But voters do not begin with a two-person race. Hill first needed to consolidate the anti-Begich vote and prevent a better-known Democrat from reaching November.
Schultz has now helped him do exactly that.
Because Schultz suspended his campaign after the withdrawal deadline, his name may remain on the primary ballot. Three other registered Democrats are also listed in the race, although none has developed a campaign comparable to Schultz’s.
Hill continues to present himself as an independent candidate rather than a Democrat. But Schultz’s endorsement, Hill’s pursuit of Democratic-aligned voters and the campaign’s own strategy document show that his pathway depends on clearing Democrats from the field and becoming the sole vehicle for voters seeking to defeat Begich.
The strategy is no longer visible on Hill’s website. But the receipt is still there.
6 thoughts on “The receipts are here: Bill Hill’s now-scrubbed campaign strategy called for a general election with ‘no Democratic candidates’”
Poor Tom Begich! This is what happens to people that Scott Kendall hates!! Oh and you can bet this is true. Otherwise why would Kendall’s group be so against Begich since he leads in the polls? Even Walker getting into the Governor’s race was Kendall’s idea. He knew his boy from Sitka was going no where regardless of the amount he raises!!
Hills is tough, or so he claims. What he really is is a huge mass of ego.
If I understand it correctly, the Reverend Schultz only suspended his campaign after the candidate withdrawal period and if he ends up in the top four in the jungle primary he will still advance to the general election. It might be worth a primary vote for those who understand that our current jungle primary and rank voting scheme is just a big game instead of an election.
Thanks for this amazing investigative piece and a heads up to all conservatives and Republicans. The Democrat Party is truly hated by the majority of Alaskans. That’s why so many of the lefties and liberals have “become” Independents. There is no litmus test. Being Independent means you don’t have to truly identify yourself. Just show up on the ballot and hope you fool enough people to make the cut under RCV. Democrats use every method available to cheat. And when they are outed, they hide behind “Independent.”
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Thank you, Suzanne.
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GO! NB3.
I’m waiting for the day when Democrats show any respect for the people they hope to represent. How many Democrat primaries have been scuttled at the whim of Democrat leadership voiding every vote that every Democrat cast in the primary. Reprehensible!!
I wonder if “Bill Hill” has any idea what Congress is and what they do. Asking for a friend.