Matt Shinners
Q3 FEC fundraising reports were due Thursday, so we’ll see totals reported in the news and details of those reports trickling out over the next few days. Come back early next week for a full independent breakdown on IVN.
Between the independents running this cycle, Bill Hill’s congressional campaign was one of the first to put out a release, suggesting a strong showing.
The campaign says it raised $1.17 million from July through September. That is roughly as much as the independent raised in the whole first half of the year, when he was still splitting the anti-Begich vote with a Democrat.
The figures were shared early with the Alaska Current ahead of the October 15 FEC deadline. The campaign said the total came from more than 2,500 individual Alaskans.
And in its release Wednesday, it said those donors came from 96 communities.
“I’m proud to have support from communities across Alaska from Kotzebue to Ketchikan to King Salmon to Kenai,” Hill said in the release.
The number matters. So does the line about the source.
For Hill and every other well-funded independent this cycle, the money story has become an identity story. Republicans are no longer arguing mainly about how much these candidates raise. They are arguing about what the money reveals: which platform processed it, which party endorsed the candidate, and which super PACs are spending alongside the campaign.
The ActBlue Fight
No fundraising detail has drawn more attacks than ActBlue, the online platform that processes most Democratic small-dollar contributions.
ActBlue loosened its rules in 2025. Under the change, it reviews independent candidates case by case, weighing factors such as whether a Democrat is in the race, whether the candidate has a Democratic Party endorsement, and whether the candidate aligns with Democratic priorities.
Republicans have turned the platform into a line of attack in every race:
- Alaska: Hill’s donation page offers ActBlue alongside Anedot.
- Nebraska: Ricketts’ campaign manager said 72% of Osborn’s second-quarter contributions came through ActBlue and more than 83% of his itemized donations came from out of state.
- Montana: Republican Kurt Alme demanded that Bodnar refund the $1.76 million his campaign has raised through ActBlue, which is roughly half of his total.
- Wisconsin: Mike Thurow’s site gives donors two buttons: ActBlue and Numero.
The platform is a target in its own right. GOP-led investigations and threats from the Trump administration have pushed some Democratic candidates to line up backup fundraising tools.
Hill: The Rest of the Case
Outside of donation sources and fundraising platform, the Republican case against Hill (and other independents) starts with endorsements.
The Alaska Democratic Party endorsed Hill the day after the primary results were finalized. The DCCC then added him to its “Red to Blue” program; the Alaska GOP chair responded by calling him a “Democrat in the witness protection program.” House Majority PAC, the super PAC allied with the DCCC, announced TV and digital ads in Alaska supporting Hill.
Next comes the polling. The survey Hill’s campaign circulated before the primary, showing him within four points of Begich, was conducted by GBAO, a Democratic-aligned firm. Tavern Research, a Democratic firm, has also released surveys promoting Hill without disclosing who paid for them.
Then the staff and the personal record. Hill’s campaign is run by the Ship Creek Group, a firm known for electing left-leaning candidates, and he collected endorsements from unions and prominent progressives. Federal records also show modest past donations to Democrats.
None of it was a straight line. When Democrat Matt Schultz dropped out in July, he complained that too many institutions in the party’s orbit had declined to meaningfully back his campaign. Hill’s answer to the DCCC news was that he welcomes support “from anyone in any party” who wants better representation for Alaska.
When asked which caucus he would join earlier in the race, he said he is “caucusing with the Alaska people.”
What Does an Independent Coalition Look Like in a World of Two-Party Dominance?
For decades, independent campaigns had one thing in common: they had no infrastructure. That has changed. Hill’s quarter, Bodnar’s string of fundraising leads, and Osborn’s donor counts all show that an independent label no longer means running without donors, consultants, or super PAC backup.
Infrastructure doesn’t come from nowhere, though. The donor networks, consultants, pollsters, and digital fundraising tools that a statewide campaign needs mostly exist inside the two parties’ orbits. An independent who wants to compete has to borrow from somewhere. Right now, most of what’s available to these four candidates sits on the Democratic side.
The coalition math points the same way. An independent’s pitch comes down to this: the current representation isn’t working and needs to change.
In Alaska, Nebraska, Montana, and Wisconsin’s 6th District, the people holding those seats are Republicans. The voters who elected them should be the least interested in replacing them. So, an independent running against a Republican incumbent will naturally draw heavily from Democrats, then add whatever independents and disaffected Republicans they can win over.
Flip the map, and the pattern flips with it. In California, Democrats hold power and redrew the congressional lines. There, Rep. Kevin Kiley left the Republican Party in March and is running with no party preference in a new district that leans Democratic.
His coalition has to come from Republicans and independents unhappy with Democratic rule. He also faces his own version of the identity question: he still caucuses with House Republicans so he can keep his committee assignments.
Seen side by side, the “fake independent” charge says less about any one candidate than about where independents currently have to go for money and votes. That doesn’t make the critique irrelevant. An independent elected on one party’s infrastructure and one party’s voters will face steady pressure to vote like that party.
What comes next depends on two things. First, does this cycle inspire more independents to run in more places, against Democratic incumbents as well as Republican ones, with coalitions that don’t all lean in the same direction? Second, does independent infrastructure mature enough to support coalitions built from different groups rather than borrowed from one side of the aisle?
If both happen, the independent movement could change the country’s political fortunes. If not, it risks being absorbed by a major party, reduced to a rebranding strategy for red-state Democrats and blue-state Republicans, and rendered toothless.
The first independent or independents to run, and how they react to the enticements of power from the major parties, will certainly play a large role in determining which direction the wind blows.