Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor moderated a discussion “Defending State’s Rights Against Federal Overreach” with AG panelists from across the country during the Alaska Oil and Gas Association conference at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (Bill Roth / ADN)
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom late Friday night reversed her 4-day-old decision to reject Treg Taylor’s candidacy for governor, reinstating him onto the November ballot.
In a prepared statement issued after 10 p.m., Dahlstrom, a Republican who oversees Alaska’s elections, said she would certify Taylor’s candidacy despite a finding by a bipartisan campaign finance commission that Taylor — the Republican former attorney general — had not completed a financial disclosure as required by law.
Dahlstrom had said on Monday that she would not certify Taylor’s candidacy, triggering a decision by his running mate, businesswoman Candi English, to take his spot on the general election ballot and name Taylor’s wife, Jodi Taylor, as her running mate.
According to a statement from the lieutenant governor’s office, the Alaska Department of Law — which had been overseen by Taylor until a year ago — conducted an “independent review” of candidates’ financial statements, which “identified numerous potential discrepancies between filed statements and public records.”
Dahlstrom decided to reinstate Taylor and another Republican legislative candidate, Jose Tagle, who had been disqualified after submitting a blank financial disclosure and failing to correct it within the allowable time frame, according to the statement from her office.
“The Department of Law’s informal review has raised questions about the recommendations made on August 31,” Dahlstrom said in the statement. “I will not withhold certification from two candidates on recommendations that, in light of this additional information, I cannot apply with confidence across the field of candidates. Certification decisions have to rest on a process that can be defended as to every candidate.”
Dahlstrom did not publicly release the Department of Law’s findings.
The Alaska Public Offices Commission first found last year that Taylor had not disclosed the names of hundreds of tenants as required by law. Taylor and his wife bought Inlet View Tower, a prominent building near downtown Anchorage, in 2023.
Despite multiple promptings from commission staff, Taylor did not disclose the full names of his tenants this year, prompting a recommendation from the commission — whose members come from both major political parties — to disqualify Taylor. Alaska law requires candidates and public officials to disclose once per year every source of income over $1,000.
Most commission investigations stem from complaints filed by members of the public, though commission staff sometimes initiate an investigation without a precipitating complaint, as they did in Taylor’s case.
In the days after Taylor’s now-reversed disqualification, concerns had been raised about financial disclosures forms filed by other candidates, including that of gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, who did not disclose her majority ownership stake in Denali Disposal, a garbage collection company.
Dahlstrom’s decision means that Taylor will join the field in a high-stakes governor’s race that includes Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and two other Republicans, Wilson and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson.
Several minutes before Dahlstrom sent out her press release, Taylor posted a gif on social media, taken from “The Godfather: Part III” with the text “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” It was captioned “IT’S ON BABY.”
At 11 p.m., Taylor posted a statement on social media.
“Man, I’m getting whiplash,” he wrote. “This campaign has always been about standing up to political insiders and special interests who think they get to decide what’s best for Alaska. Then they tried to take me off the ballot. They realized that if they applied the same standard they used against me, they’d have to remove multiple candidates from the ballot, throwing our election into chaos. So they put me back on. That tells you everything you need to know.”