Alaska

Alaska is the largest US state by area and the least contiguous, sitting across the Bering Strait from Russia and anchoring US Arctic defence posture. It has roughly 740,000 residents, two Republican US senators, and an oil-dependent economy: production tax revenue funds both state government and the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays an annual dividend to residents. Its senior senator, Lisa Murkowski, is a centrist known for crossing party lines on national security, judicial and healthcare votes.

Alaska entered the Iran-conflict legislative record through Murkowski, who on 13 May 2026 cast the first Republican vote in favour of a Senate War Powers Resolution on Iran, citing the absence of an administration briefing since the Hegseth HASC testimony. Her crossing brought the tally to 49-50, one short of the majority needed. On 19 May she voted yes again on the 50-47 discharge motion that cleared the Kaine resolution to the floor, part of a four-Republican bloc alongside Collins, Cassidy and Paul. She held the same line on 20 May's 50-47 floor-advance vote, the conflict's first successful procedural advance after seven prior defeats. Her trajectory tracked roughly ten weeks of hedging: public criticism of Trump's rhetoric from April Onward without committing to cross, a stalled AUMF draft, then the collapse of that AUMF after Hegseth's testimony.

Alaska's own Senate race produced a ballot-Integrity dispute in June 2026: a retired Petersburg teacher named Dan Sullivan filed to run against incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, an identical name and party label in a race the senator is contesting against Democratic former Representative Mary Peltola. The state's Division of Elections, led by Director Carol Beecher, ruled around 12 June that the challenger had not filed in good faith and struck his name from the ballot, though he retained a 30-day appeal window running past the 28 June primary ballot print deadline. The Alaska Supreme Court reinstated the challenger, now identified as Dan J. Sullivan, to the 18 August primary ballot, and Cook Political Report responded by moving the Alaska Senate race from Lean Republican to Toss-up, the closest rating the seat has carried all cycle. Election lawyer Scott Kendall had urged a middle-initial fix over outright removal, warning that disqualification invited appeal risk right up to ballot printing; the court's reinstatement bore that warning out.

Alaska's oil and gas production tax, which taxes the value of extracted oil at the wellhead to fund both state government and the Permanent Fund dividend, is the closest existing US precedent for a state taxing the direct use of a resource rather than the underlying property or income. Virginia invoked the same basic principle in the opposite domain on 30 June 2026, when Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a $0.011-per-kilowatt-hour data-centre electricity consumption tax into law in place of a rival flat generator fee. Alaska is not itself a data-centre market of note; the entity is linked here on this legal-template parallel alone, not on any direct involvement.