While independent U.S. House candidate Bill Hill was speaking at a rally in Juneau on Thursday, an SMS ad from an undisclosed sender with a 907 area code urged the recipient to “vote Democrat” and declared Hill can’t be trusted because he refuses “to commit to caucusing with Democrats in Congress.”

Hill is spending his final days of the campaign pushing back hard against shadowy efforts on behalf of Democratic candidate Eric Hafner, a federal prison inmate in New York scheduled for release in 2026. But Hill is also refusing to say if he will caucus with Democrats if elected, even though party officials in Alaska have given their allegiance to him.

He is willing to toss out some suggestive indicators.

“I’m not in it to put Mike Johnson into power,” Hill told the Juneau Independent on Thursday, referring to the Louisiana Republican who is the current House Speaker.

Hill also said he’ll be “voting against the tariffs, voting against the Iran war” and other various key Trump administration policies Begich has supported, including health care coverage cuts in last year’s budget bill as well as tax cuts in that legislation.

Such votes have been cast by some Republicans in Congress, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski among the most notable. When Hill was asked who he would prefer to work with as the other member of the Alaska delegation — Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan or Democratic challenger Mary Peltola — he declined to answer twice, repeating “I’m going to work with whoever’s there.”

Hill was then asked why voters concerned about which party is in power should trust him if he won’t provide a direct answer on allegiances.

“I feel like I am being straightforward and I feel like we have a representative who’s not been straightforward,” he said.

Hill, a commercial fisherman and business owner making his first run for public office, emerged as the main challenger to Begich by finishing second in the Aug. 18 primary with 32.5% of the vote to Begich’s 44.6%. The top-finishing Democrat was Matt Schultz at 8.1%, who a month earlier had withdrawn from the race and endorsed Hill. The Alaska Democratic Party also endorsed Hill that month.

That left Hafner, who got 3.8% in the primary, as the only Democrat on the four-candidate, ranked choice general election ballot.

Polls and political rating websites show the race between Begich and Hill has tightened since the primary, with both The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball changing their ratings to “Lean Republican” instead of the earlier “Likely Republican.”

Two polls taken this month published at The New York Times’ tracking website show Begich winning the ranked choice runoff by 2% and 5%. Hafner gets 5% of the first-choice votes in the first poll, 7% in the second.

When asked about the possibility of losing a close race due to his refusal to commit to caucusing with Democrats while asking for their support, Hill again declined to give a direct answer, declaring ads such as the “vote Democrat” SMS are misinformation that need to be called out as such.

Hill said his refusal to commit to an allegiance is based on the example set by the Alaska Legislature, which currently has bipartisan majority coalitions in both chambers.

“I think Alaska has set a great example for how things should be done,” he said. “I would love to work with a small group of independents and build a coalition working for Alaska.”

Democrats are widely expected to take control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections, with no indication that party leaders need or would consider an Alaska-style ruling coalition with Republicans to preside over the chamber.

Hill, when asked about that reality, said “I am not going to give up the hope that Alaskans want somebody who can build a different kind of coalition because a two-party system, as it stands, has not been serving us well.”

A two-hour meet-and-greet event at Amalga Distillery on Thursday afternoon was largely attended by Democratic officials and supporters, some of whom attended or worked at a nearby Peltola campaign rally immediately afterward. In a speech to about 60 people gathered an hour into the event, Hill heavily criticized various votes and political positions taken by Begich, telling them “we know we have the power to turn this in our favor.”

“Your job is to reach out to your personal network,” he said. “Make sure they go out and vote. Make sure they take a look at my campaign website. Tell them about me. If you believe in what I stand for and what we are about, tell them about me.”

This story was originally published by the Juneau Independent.