Former Alaska attorney general Treg Taylor filed to join the 2026 race for governor on Wednesday. Taylor is the tenth Republican to enter the race to replace his former boss, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who is term-limited.
Taylor was Dunleavy’s attorney general for more than four years, and in an interview, he said he could hit the ground running.
“I know what the issues are that we face,” he said. “We definitely need to get the economy moving again. We need to create good-paying jobs. We need affordable, reliable sources of energy and to get the cost of living down, and we need to get Juneau working again and not be politics as usual.”
Taylor touted his work challenging the Biden administration, especially on resource development, and his collaboration with the Trump administration. He said he worked with Trump’s team on the president’s Day 1 executive order seeking to ease drilling, mining and logging in the state.
Taylor also cited significant declines in violent crime and sexual assault in the state during his tenure as attorney general.
He said that if elected, he’d seek to attract data centers and other new businesses to the state, echoing a priority of Dunleavy.
“I think that the overall theme from me is going to be not taxing your tax base more, but growing your tax base,” he said.
Taylor also echoed Dunleavy’s approach to improving the state’s education system, saying he would focus on improving students’ performance as governor, rather than seeking to boost funding for public schools. He pointed to “some distinction in the sort of the focus of what elements I would like to see in education, on the accountability side, on the option side” compared to Dunleavy’s approach but said he was still developing the specifics.
Taylor and his family have also backed efforts to allow students to use state homeschool funding to pay for tuition at private and religious schools, the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.
As the state continues to face a budget crunch, Taylor said he’d like to take a “serious look” at the state’s spending. He said he’d also like to scrutinize federal spending that flows to the state.
“What you know some people might call free money, well, it's not free. It comes with purse strings, one, and two, it's paid for by taxpayers like you and I,” he said. “We need to look and see what the cost of that money is to the state, and whether those programs and those things are worth (it) to the state.”
Taylor and his wife recently asked state campaign regulators for an exemption from a requirement to disclose the names of tenants paying rent at properties they own in Anchorage, saying disclosure would open the tenants up to harassment. The Alaska Public Offices Commission has yet to decide whether to grant the request.
Taylor joins nine other Republican candidates and one Democrat seeking to succeed Dunleavy.
The top four vote-getters in the August 2026 primary will advance to the general election in November.
