Alaska's Senate race is on pace to shatter spending records — before a primary that decides nothing

Sen. Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola are trading attack ads and dueling rebuttals at full volume ahead of Alaska's Aug. 18 primary — a contest whose outcome, for the two of them, is already settled. Both are all but certain to advance, and they're spending like the general election is already here.

Under Alaska's top-four open primary, the four highest vote-getters move on to November regardless of party. Fourteen other candidates are on the Senate ballot; none has reported significant fundraising. Sullivan and Peltola will both advance, and both are already spending at a record pace.

Peltola raised $8.9 million in the first quarter of 2026 — a record for any U.S. Senate campaign in Alaska, her campaign said, with 95% of donations $100 or less. She has outraised Sullivan by wide margins since, taking in nearly $7 million in the second quarter to his roughly $2 million, and spending it nearly as fast: more than $6.5 million in a single quarter on media and digital. Sullivan, sitting on a larger cash reserve, announced a $2.2 million primary ad buy last month. Both figures come before the primary has settled a thing.

National Democrats have named the race one of their top targets in their bid to retake the Senate, and outside groups aligned with both parties have already committed millions — Democratic-aligned PACs boosting Peltola, Republican-aligned money backing Sullivan. In a state of roughly 730,000 people, the race is drawing spending scaled to its national stakes rather than its population.

The ads themselves aim past the primary. Sullivan's spots tie Peltola to Chuck Schumer and "lower 48 liberals," casting her first Senate vote as one to hand Democrats the majority. Peltola's messaging casts Sullivan as a servant of "billionaires and corporate special interests" who "sell us out in DC." Each campaign has dismissed the other's ads as misleading. Both are campaigning against a November opponent, not an August one.

With more than two months still to run, and outside money still arriving, the race is on track to be the most expensive in Alaska history.