Alaska’s competitive U.S. Senate election features a striking point of agreement between Democratic nominee and former Rep. Mary Peltola and Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan. Both support expanding oil and gas development while presenting the industry as a reliable source of good jobs for Alaskans.

Polls show voters narrowly favoring Peltola, raising the possibility that another red state could flip blue. Yet on oil and gas, her position largely mirrors Sullivan’s enthusiasm for development.

Peltola’s campaign says she has championed Alaska energy, supported the Willow Oil Project and challenged Joe Biden over development. Her platform also promises infrastructure modernization, permitting changes and cooperation with local communities so Alaska’s resource benefits remain in the state.

Willow is an $8 billion ConocoPhillips venture on federally protected land. Peltola has called it “frustrating” when environmental groups describe the project as a “carbon bomb,” while Defenders of Wildlife says it could release “260 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere over the next 30 years.”

Sullivan has similarly tied energy expansion to jobs, particularly through Alaska LNG. In the Oval Office last week, he celebrated what Trump administration members described as a $54 billion South Korean government investment, though Reuters later reported that South Korea’s industry minister said “no decision has been made on whether to invest or on the size of the investment.”

The political sales pitch collides with Alaska’s own employment data. The state’s 2026 annual report found that nonresidents held 40.5% of all oil and gas industry jobs in 2024, marking the third consecutive year of record gains for nonresident employment in the industry.

That share was nearly seven percentage points above the 2017 level, when nonresidents held 33.6% of industry jobs. The report defines residents as people who applied for an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend in either 2024 or 2025, since eligibility requires living in the state for a full calendar year.

The Alaska Permanent Fund is an $89 billion sovereign wealth fund that invests oil royalties and distributes part of its revenue to residents annually. Even with that deep relationship between oil and state finances, petroleum employment hardly dominates Alaska’s labor market.

Only 2.5% of Alaska’s 413,867 workers were employed in oil and gas during 2024, according to the report. Nearly six times as many residents worked in health care, while retail and hospitality each employed four times as many.

The nonresident share rises in particular jobs and locations. More than 80% of the state’s oil and gas workers are employed in the remote North Slope Borough, where almost half are nonresidents.

Nearly 60% of heavy and tractor trailer truck drivers are nonresidents. Nonresidents also account for more than half of workers operating mobile heavy equipment and more than half of welders, cutters, solderers and braziers, while residents hold over 60% of construction, roustabout and helper jobs.

The pay figures sharpen the disparity. Oil and gas workers represented only about 4% of nonresident workers across industries in 2024, but they collected 13% of all nonresident wages that year.

One quarter of petroleum engineers were nonresidents, earning the second highest average quarterly wage at $71,735. Almost half of rotary drill and service unit operators were nonresidents, with those categories averaging nearly $37,000 and $38,000 per quarter, respectively.

Asked how expansion would benefit Alaskans, a Peltola spokesperson said the data did not support the question’s premise and noted that nearly two thirds of industry jobs went to residents. The spokesperson also highlighted that mining and oil and gas represented only 7% of Alaska’s nonresident workforce.

A Sullivan spokesman claimed the industry lost jobs under the Biden administration, though the state data shows oil and gas employment increasing since 2021. After being asked for clarification, he said employment remained well below 2015 levels, although nearly all of that decline occurred during the first Trump administration.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is accelerating Alaska oil and gas projects under an executive order titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.” Policymakers have revoked regulations and sped projects forward while cutting environmental and subsistence reviews that assess effects on hunting and fishing.

Bridget Psarianos, senior staff attorney at Trustees for Alaska, said exploration involving bulldozers and 30,000 pound seismic thumper trucks can leave lasting scars on the Arctic landscape. She described political jobs rhetoric as propaganda benefiting wealthy people outside Alaska and pointed to years of industry tax credits.

Texas based ConocoPhillips is Alaska’s largest oil producer, and former chief executive Ryan Lance received $23.5 million in reported compensation last year. Hilcorp, the state’s largest privately held oil and gas company, is also based in Texas and led by Greg Lalicker, who bought a $24.7 million Houston house two years ago.

Developers of new projects, including Alaska LNG majority owner Glenfarne Group, also want tax benefits. Psarianos distilled the problem bluntly: “We’re not getting jobs and we’re not getting tax revenue from this stuff.”