Trump Campaigns in Alaska, Signs Pardons, Promises Checks If GOP Wins Midterm Elections

President Donald Trump took the stage in Alaska on Tuesday night, restating his claim that he would give $5,000 to every adult citizen in the United States if the Republican Party kept control of the U.S. House and Senate after the Nov. 3 elections.

Trump spoke for 90 minutes in the small city of Wasilla to campaign for Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, whose race could determine control of the U.S. Senate. Sullivan is seeking a third Senate term against Democrat Mary Peltola, a former U.S. representative. The rally is also intended to support Republican Rep. Nick Begich’s reelection campaign.

Peltola has a slight lead over Sullivan in an InsiderAdvantage poll.

Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, while Democrats and the independents aligned with them hold 47.

At the rally, Trump attacked ranked-choice voting, where voters ranked candidates by preference on their ballots. He told voters to repeal it on the Alaska ballot on Nov. 3.

“It’s a Dumocrat scam. You gotta repeal ranked choice. It’s a joke all over the country,” Trump said, saying that it was just “a way to cheat.”

Trump also signed pardons on stage for two men from Alaska who pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act. The men tampered with federally mandated monitoring devices on private and commercial vehicles and removed required air pollution control equipment on at least 37 vehicles from July 2019 to September 2020.

Sullivan had said the diesel engine modifications were necessary to keep the vehicles operating under Alaska’s extreme winter conditions.

“They want to put them in jail for 10 years because they fixed an engine,” Trump told the crowd.

Trump said no president has been better for Alaska than he has.

He announced at the rally that Taiwan would invest $4.4 billion to help construct a new natural gas pipeline in Alaska. Earlier this month, he announced that South Korea had agreed to invest $54 billion in the same pipeline.

He also said the federal government will invest $162 million to expand high-speed internet in the state.

The president also addressed the war with Iran, saying it was winding down.

“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told the crowd. “That war is going to end pretty soon. And when it does, the prices are going to come tumbling down.”

He said that Iran is no longer the “bully of the Middle East.”

“They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft. They have no anything,” Trump said. He added that Iran is not paying its police.

Trump’s visit follows Vice President JD Vance’s campaign appearance for Sullivan in Fairbanks. Vance also met with U.S. troops at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the state’s largest city, on Oct. 5.

Alaska Survey Research said Trump’s popularity is at an all-time low, according to polling dating back to 2015. In the latest poll posted on X on Oct. 12, 38 percent rated Trump positively, 58 percent negatively, 3 percent had no opinion, and 1 percent had “never heard.”

“We’ve asked this exact question maybe 50 times on surveys dating back to 2015. This is the worst rating we’ve ever recorded,” Alaska Survey Research posted on X.

Peltola has made an issue of the high costs of groceries and linked it to Trump’s war in Iran.

On Oct. 9, she posted a photo of paper towels selling for $40.99 and paper plates selling for $53.99.

“Grocery store prices in rural Alaska right now,” Peltola posted on X. “Most goods here come by barge or plane, so life here has always cost more. But this? This is as bad as it’s ever been. This is what the price-hiking war in Iran is costing Alaskans. Dan Sullivan has now voted for it 14 times.”

One commenter on X zoomed in on the image Peltola posted of the $40.99 sign for paper towels and noted that the sign said prices were effective Feb. 9, 2026, weeks before Trump first attacked Iran.

In another post on X on Oct. 13, Peltola posted a photo of $9.37 for heating fuel in Kotzebue.

“We heat our homes with diesel in most of Alaska, and families here are bracing for a winter where they’ll have to decide between heat and food. It’s apocalyptic–and Dan Sullivan’s votes are to blame,” Peltola said.

Trump has said the increase in the cost of diesel fuel was mostly due to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The president said he previously told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy not to target Russia’s refineries because it would cause a fuel shortage.

“We said, ‘You can do whatever you want to Russia, but don’t hit these refineries because that’s a world problem.’ And he wants to make problems for the world,” Trump told reporters on Oct. 10. “He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world. … And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”

Sullivan has campaigned to open the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge so it can create more jobs and boost the state’s economy.