JUNEAU, Alaska — Abortion access has taken a back seat to affordability in Alaska's congressional campaigns, despite pointed contrasts between candidates on reproductive rights.

In a split along partisan lines, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, both Republicans, broadly oppose abortion and have voted to curb public money funding access to the procedure. Their leading challengers, Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola and independent House candidate Bill Hill — endorsed by the Democratic Party — have come out in support of the right to an abortion.

Abortion access has long been a galvanizing issue for both major political parties in the United States and is considered one of the most potent motivating factors for single-issue voters. But with strong legal protections for abortion in Alaska, and the rising cost of living creating challenges for many voters, the issue has been shunted to the side in this year's hotly contested midterm elections.

The debate over abortion has also been in the spotlight less than other social issues as national Republican political action committees have poured millions into ad campaigns linking Hill and Peltola to the issues of transgender children in sports and access to gender-affirming care.

Candidates on both sides of the aisle have downplayed their position on abortion in this year's campaign. Of the four candidates running well-funded campaigns in Alaska's congressional races, only Hill prominently features his support for abortion rights on his website.

That's in contrast to 2024, the year Peltola lost her seat in the House of Representatives to Begich. During that election cycle, some of Peltola's campaign merchandise promoted her pro-choice stance and the topic was highlighted during a debate broadcast on Alaska Public Media.

Begich filled out a candidate survey that year for conservative Christian group Alaska Family Action expressing support for a national abortion ban. But in this year's race, facing a challenge from Hill, Begich didn't respond to the group's survey at all before receiving its endorsement.

He said during a debate in 2024 with Peltola and in a statement to the media that he doesn't support a national abortion ban, and instead favors leaving the issue up to the states.

Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, access to abortion pills such as mifepristone has become the focus of the next legal battle over abortion access. After the Supreme Court's ruling, the Biden administration ended in-person dispensing requirements for access to abortion medication, which expanded availability of those medicines through the mail.

Across the country, medication abortion is the most common method of terminating pregnancies, including in Alaska, where there are only two Planned Parenthood clinics that widely publicize abortion services. Patients can continue to access the drug through the mail while a lawsuit between the state of Louisiana and the Food and Drug Administration is ongoing, after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary ruling in May.

Neither Begich nor Sullivan responded to questions for the story about whether they believe abortion medication should be available by mail or whether access to the drugs should be further restricted.

Abortion and Alaska's libertarian streak

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the stakes for abortion access are different in Alaska compared to many other states.

Alaska has some of the strongest legal protections for abortion access in the country. The Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the state constitution's privacy clause protects abortion rights, and the state is one of nine that have no gestational limits on abortion.

Voters during this campaign are more focused on issues such as the cost of living and fisheries, said Jim Lottsfeldt, a lobbyist and political strategist who works with left-of-center candidates.

"What we're trying to figure out is, who's going to be better on bringing costs down, who's going to be more effective at tackling trawling? Who is more in touch with average Alaskans? And so those issues have come to the top. And abortion and the right to choose and women's health are less so viewed as vital," Lottsfeldt said.

Lottsfeldt said Alaska's libertarian streak can also make it difficult to turn opposition to abortion into a winning issue in the general election. Nearly two-thirds of Alaskans are not registered with a political party. Alaska also has a lower rate of religiosity than the national average, with only 26% of Alaskans saying they are highly religious in a Pew Research Center study released in 2025.

Recent polling conducted by Anchorage-based firm Alaska Survey Research, at the direction of Planned Parenthood, found that nearly 63% of Alaska adults believe that abortion should be legal "in all or most cases."

"Alaska is notoriously libertarian when it comes to personal freedoms, and people who might be personally opposed to abortion still are like, 'Yeah, but I don't get to tell everybody else what to do,'" Lottsfeldt said.

Morgan Lim, Alaska state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said abortion access is closely tied to the affordability concerns dominating campaigns.

"Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare right now, especially, is an affordability issue," he said.

The Alaska Department of Health recorded 1,200 abortions in 2025, according to its annual report. Most were performed using medication, though access to surgical abortions remains limited by the small number of providers. Travel distances, availability of providers and the cost create barriers to access.

"No one should have to choose between putting gas in their tank to reach a healthcare provider and having enough money to pay the bills. I think that healthcare access and affordability are really inseparable from the broader cost-of-living conversations that's happening in Alaska," Lim said.

Sullivan and Peltola clash over abortion records

Alaska's U.S. Senate race is one of the most closely watched in the country, representing one of a few seats that could determine control of the chamber after the midterm elections.

Sullivan has described himself saying he's "as pro-life as they come," and Peltola has supported access to abortion, following suit with the platforms of their respective parties. But both campaigns have centered their campaigns this year on broader questions of the economy, affordability, energy and fisheries instead.

Although President Donald Trump is broadly credited for engineering the reversal of the constitutional right to an abortion by appointing conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court in his first term, neither candidate's messaging about Trump has focused on this aspect of his presidency.

Sullivan has instead said his close relationship to the president helped bring federal funding to Alaska, and he has touted Trump's push to reverse environmental protections that limit oil and gas extraction, logging and other development projects across the state.

In her run for Senate, Peltola's campaign priorities include affordability, "fixing the rigged system in D.C." and supporting the state's fisheries after years of declining salmon runs, particularly in her home region of Western Alaska. Her 2026 campaign slogan is "Fish, Family, Freedom." It's a slightly different take on the slogan that appeared on campaign shirts from her 2024 run for a second term in the U.S. House: "pro-fish, pro-family, pro-jobs, pro-choice."

In a statement, a spokesperson for Alaskans for Mary said Peltola would continue to defend abortion access.

"Mary will always fight for Alaskans' fundamental freedoms, including the right to access safe and legal abortion, because she knows that a woman's most personal healthcare decisions shouldn't be made by D.C. politicians," said her campaign spokesperson, Harry Child.

Peltola supported legislation to protect abortion access during her time in the U.S. House, including one bill to prohibit states from restricting women from traveling to another state to access abortion services, and another that would ban abortion restrictions before fetal viability nationwide. Neither bill passed.

Sullivan's campaign criticized Peltola's record, pointing to her vote against the proposed Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in January 2023 with most of the other House Democrats. The bill, which remains stalled in the Senate, would criminally punish any doctor who fails to provide medical care to a child born alive after an attempted abortion. Sullivan also criticized Peltola for voting against a January 2023 resolution condemning attacks on anti-abortion facilities, groups and churches. That resolution was opposed by most Democrats because it didn't also condemn violence at facilities run by abortion providers.

The Sullivan campaign also cited a New York Times report detailing allegations of angry outbursts and slurs used by Peltola during her time in Congress. The article, which was based on interviews with unnamed former Peltola staffers, included reports of a text message in which Peltola allegedly said she wished that a local Planned Parenthood board member would "die of a botched abortion."

"Senator Dan Sullivan has been clearly and consistently pro-life, which is more than Mary Peltola can say about her own position," said Nate Adams, Sullivan's campaign spokesperson.

Adams also said Peltola "flip-flopped" on her stance on abortion, citing past comments about supporting a 16-week limit on abortion in interviews during her 2022 race for her first full term in the U.S. House, which her campaign later said she had misspoken about. Republican anti-abortion politicians have supported 15-week restrictions on the procedure.

Sullivan, on the other hand, has been outspoken in supporting the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade because it takes the "debate out of the realm of federal courts, and gives it back to the states and the people of our country, where I believe it belongs," he said after the landmark ruling in 2022. Sullivan was also one of dozens of Republican lawmakers who signed an amicus brief asking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2021. He did not sign on to a similar brief the year before.

He also voted in 2018 and 2020 to ban abortion nationwide with criminal penalties after 20 weeks, "to protect pain-capable unborn children."

Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a political action committee associated with the abortion provider, has criticized Sullivan's record. Peltola does not appear on the organization's 2026 endorsement list, although they endorsed her in 2024.

A spokesperson from Planned Parenthood did not answer a question about why organization did not endorse Peltola this year.

"With the midterm elections just days away, it's never been more clear that abortion is a dealbreaker for voters," said Nora Walsh-DeVries, Planned Parenthood Action Fund vice president of political and legislative affairs.

Walsh-DeVries said the New York Times reporting doesn't change the fact that Alaskans "deserve to have lawmakers who will fight to let everyone get the essential, life-saving care they need, including abortions."

Planned Parenthood Alliance PAC, which runs independent expenditure campaigns in Alaska and five other states, has spent roughly $15,000 this month on ads opposing Sullivan, including for phone banking and campaign literature.

Hill supports abortion access, Begich has backed restrictions

In the race for Alaska's sole U.S. House seat, independent Hill is the most outspoken about his stance on abortion access.

He is the only candidate to promote his position on reproductive rights alongside his other campaign priorities, like affordability and fisheries policies, and he is the lone Planned Parenthood-endorsed candidate in Alaska's congressional races this year.

Begich's campaign website touts his support for tax cuts passed by Republicans in Congress, his support for resource development in Alaska and work on Alaska Native policy, but it does not note his positions on social issues such as abortion.

Hill criticized Begich's anti-abortion position, saying his opponent supports politicians dictating private medical decisions. He noted Begich's support of a national abortion ban after 12 weeks of pregnancy in 2024 and comments praising the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as "a great day for people who believe in the rule of law and the constitution," in a radio interview during his first campaign for the House seat in 2022.

"I believe members of Congress have no business getting between a patient and their doctor. Alaskans value our privacy, including the right to make our own healthcare decisions. This right is written into our state constitution. It should be protected at the federal level as well," Hill said in a statement.

A spokesperson from Begich's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

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