A mailer circulating in Alaska claims independent House candidate Bill Hill “rails against billionaires while taking money from the top funder of socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Super PAC.” Reports and FEC receipts reveal the same California billionaire who gifted a quarter million dollars to the Super PAC that backed Mamdani also donated the maximum legal amount to Bill Hill.
Bill Hill is running as an independent candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, challenging the Republican incumbent Rep. Nick Begich III. Begich has served one term in Congress, during which he set a record as the freshman with the most bills that passed the U.S. House.
The donor is Elizabeth “Liz” Simons of Atherton, California, heir to the Renaissance Technologies fortune and chair of the Heising-Simons Foundation. In August 2025 she gave $250,000 to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, the independent committee that spent millions to elect Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York. That gift was among the PAC’s three largest individual contributions, along with Omer Hasan ($250,000) and Mohammad Javed (~$250,200). In 2026, FEC itemized receipts for Bill Hill for Alaskans list Simons, of 383 Walsh Rd., Atherton, giving $7,000— the highest legal amount Simons can give directly to Hill. The same filing lists her brother, investor Nat Simons, also giving $7,000.
That is not money moving from Mamdani’s super PAC into Hill’s campaign account. Federal law bars super PACs from contributing to a candidate committee. However, it is the same progressive philanthropist treating two races as worth funding.
Hill’s campaign platform calls for “taxing the 1%,” taxing S-corps like C-corps, and making “billionaires and mega corporations pay their share.” In a March op-ed, he accused Rep. Nick Begich of “jacking up our health insurance prices to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires.”
Although Hill criticizes billionaires, he has taken several large individual gifts from wealthy out-of-state financiers besides Simons and her brother. The Alaska Beacon reported those contributors include New York investors Dirk Ziff and Michael Novogratz. About three-fourths of Hill’s itemized donations come from outside Alaska. Asked about billionaires on his list, Hill said he had “no idea” about some of them and that “you’re not going to bring a knife to a gunfight.”
National Democrats are throwing their support behind Hill. The DCCC— the official campaign arm of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives— put Hill in its Red to Blue program. Another major Democrat influencer, House Majority PAC, launched advertisements to support Hill.
When asked for comment from the Anchorage Daily News, Bill Hill’s campaign provided this statement from him: “I welcome the support from anyone in any party who wants to see better representation for Alaska. This is a big tent coalition that includes independents, Democrats, and Republicans who agree we need to see a change.”
The question facing conservatives is whether Bill Hill’s coalition for change will move Alaska in the right direction or closer toward the direction NYC has gone under Mamdani. A billionaire’s support of both Bill Hill and Mamdani does not mean Bill Hill is a socialist, but it does mean influential people see Hill as someone who runs in the same direction as Mamdani.
The Simons-to-Mamdani PAC gift and the Simons-to-Hill FEC line are not a coincidence. Voters must decide if the connection is of consequence.
