By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 26, 2026 – Artificial intelligence is a battle for our minds. And in Alaska, it’s now a battle for your vote.
Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the former Democratic state representative from Sitka, has raised more money than any of the 17 candidates seeking to succeed Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
His campaign reported approximately $1.85 million in contributions by late July, an extraordinary amount for an Alaska candidate who entered the race only in February. No other gubernatorial candidate in Alaska history has raised that much money.
But the total is only part of the story.
Six employees of Anthropic, the San Francisco artificial intelligence company behind the Claude AI platform, contributed a combined $372,000 to Kreiss-Tomkins.
That is about one dollar out of every five raised by his campaign.
The donations were made by individuals, not by Anthropic as a corporation. Politically the concentration cannot simply be waved away as coincidence. Alaska has long been known to be a cheap date for election takeovers. One only needs to look at how ranked-choice voting got installed in the state in 2020 to understand why the political operatives see our state as the testing ground.
Employees associated with Anthropic have contributed more to Kreiss-Tomkins than many Alaska candidates have raised from their entire donor bases. The six donors form the largest known group tied to one employer supporting any candidate in the 2026 Alaska governor’s race.
One donor, Drake Thomas, grew up in Soldotna and now lives in Berkeley. He contributed $100,000 and reportedly helped introduce Kreiss-Tomkins to other people at Anthropic. Other Anthropic-linked contributions included $70,000 from Jan Leike, $70,000 from Daniel Ziegler, $50,000 from Steven Bills, $50,000 from Evan Hubinger and $32,000 from Tao Lin.
Together: $372,000.
When donations from other artificial intelligence researchers, technology executives and AI-policy figures are included, the broader AI-linked financial network behind the Kreiss-Tomkins campaign exceeds $500,000.
This is not ordinary Alaska fundraising. It looks more like a national technology network selecting Alaska as a political target. Why? Very likely because these funders want to control how data centers are regulated in Alaska — and control them in a way that benefits their companies, to the detriment of other artificial intelligence companies.
The scale is especially striking because Kreiss-Tomkins has now proposed a statewide moratorium on new data centers until the Legislature adopts comprehensive regulations. His plan would also require local approval and attempt to prevent data centers from raising residential electric rates or receiving public subsidies.
That creates a curious alignment. The candidate receiving extraordinary financial support from people inside the AI industry is also positioning himself as the candidate who would write the rules governing that industry’s physical expansion in Alaska.
Perhaps Anthropic employees support him precisely because he favors AI regulation they can influence. Anthropic itself has become politically active on that side of the national debate. The company has committed a total of $40 million to Public First Action, an organization advocating government regulation of artificial intelligence. Anthropic says that corporate money is restricted to policy advocacy and cannot be used to support individual candidates.
But that only makes the Alaska pattern even more worthy of scrutiny.
Anthropic-linked giving has appeared in other 2026 races. Employees of AI companies have supported candidates in California and Tennessee, among other states. But the Alaska donations appear a strong outlier in both amount and in their concentration: Six employees of one company supplying $372,000 to one gubernatorial candidate in a state with fewer than 581,882 registered voters,
For comparison, employees from Anthropic and OpenAI reportedly combined to give California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra slightly more than $500,000. Because that total included employees of both companies, the Anthropic-only share has not been clearly established. In Tennessee, AI- and data-center-industry employees contributed more than $100,000 to Marsha Blackburn, with the reported Anthropic portion far below the Alaska figure.
Money buys television advertising, online targeting, campaign staff, polling, mailers and travel. More importantly, it allows a relatively unfamiliar candidate to introduce himself to voters on his own terms before opponents can respond.
But the real risk is to political independence and public confidence: A small collection of people connected to a powerful Outside artificial intelligence industry may obtain influence grossly disproportionate to their numbers—or their connection to Alaska.
Alaskans should ask Kreiss-Tomkins some direct questions.
What discussions has he had with these donors about artificial intelligence, data centers, energy policy and state regulation? Did any donor discuss appointments, advisory positions, contracts, regulations, or access to a future administration? Or is that simply implied? Who introduced him to each member of this network? Why did six employees of the same California AI company decide that electing Alaska’s next governor was worth $372,000?
Kreiss-Tomkins should also say whether he would commit to publicly disclosing all meetings between his administration and Anthropic representatives or major AI-industry donors if he is elected.
These are the questions responsible voters should be asking when an unprecedented amount of money arrives from one concentrated Outside network, especially one that can greatly influence the competitive strength of one company in the pioneering field of artificial intelligence.
That is the broader question for Anthropic: Is Alaska merely a target of random employees’ personal political interests, or is the state viewed within the company’s orbit as a strategic jurisdiction for energy, data centers, and AI regulation?
Alaska has abundant land, energy resources, cold weather and strategic geography. The state is one-fifth the size of the Lower 48 and has a lot of water. Those qualities make it attractive to the data-center industry. The next governor will influence energy development, state procurement, regulation, taxation, permitting and the use of artificial intelligence throughout state government.
That office is worth a great deal more than $372,000 to any company whose future depends on government policy.
Alaskans have seen versions of colonial economics before. Outside interests arrive with enormous financial power, identify local partners and seek control over decisions involving Alaska’s land, resources and government. The modern version may not arrive aboard a ship or carrying a mining claim. It may arrive electronically from Berkeley and San Francisco, one enormous campaign contribution at a time.
Kreiss-Tomkins’ financial advantage is historic or nearly so for this stage of an Alaska governor’s race. It is not built primarily on his own money, as Republican Matt Heilala’s campaign largely is. Nor does it resemble Tom Begich’s campaign, whose largest checks came from prominent Alaskans Robin Brena and Justin Weaver.
The Kreiss-Tomkins campaign is powered overwhelmingly by Outside money, with one extraordinary cluster coming from people attached to a single artificial intelligence company.
Alaskans should not be told that this proves Anthropic is secretly directing the campaign. The available records do not prove that.
But neither should voters be expected to look at $372,000 from six colleagues at one company and pretend there is nothing unusual to see.
We do not yet know what this donor network expects from Alaska or how much additional AI money may arrive before the general election. We do not know whether independent expenditure groups will join the effort after the primary. But it’s likely to happen. Money attracts money.
What Alaska does know is that a powerful new industry has taken an unusually large financial interest in one candidate for governor.
That is a warning that deserves sunlight before Alaska voters discover what they did not even know they needed to ask.
