Sullivan opens his Senate race with a $2.2M ad blitz

Sen. Dan Sullivan's campaign announced a $2.2 million statewide advertising buy Wednesday, an early show of financial force in what is shaping up as one of the more closely watched Senate races in the country ahead of Alaska's August 18 primary.

The size of the buy is itself the news. A multimillion-dollar ad campaign this far ahead of a primary signals both that Sullivan intends to define the race early and that his contest with Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola — a rematch of sorts on Alaska's political stage — is expected to draw heavy spending from both sides and outside groups before it's over. Under Alaska's open primary, the top four candidates advance to November regardless of party, so the buy is less about surviving August than about framing the general election to come.

The money runs through the primary across broadcast television, radio, and streaming. Campaign spokesman Nate Adams said it's meant to spotlight Sullivan's record — energy, Coast Guard funding, and fisheries — "in every corner of the state." The first ad, "Honor," leans on Sullivan's three decades as a Marine Corps infantry officer, in which he rose to colonel, and debuted during a U.S. World Cup match. "It was an honor to serve our country in uniform," Sullivan says in the spot. "And it's an honor to fight for Alaska in the U.S. Senate."

The rollout also went on the attack, and here readers should understand what they're being told. The campaign asserted that Peltola voted against troop pay raises and Alaska's military funding before working as a Washington lobbyist — but those are the campaign's own characterizations, not independently established facts, and the kind of claim that typically compresses a complex vote on a large defense bill into a one-line charge. Such votes often involve a member opposing a broader package for unrelated reasons rather than opposing pay raises as such, which is why these attacks are contested wherever they appear. Peltola's campaign did not respond to a request for comment, so her side of that characterization is absent here.

That imbalance is worth naming plainly: this is a campaign announcement, so every element of it — the record it highlights, the contrast it draws, the timing — reflects how Sullivan wants the race seen. What it signals most reliably isn't any single claim but the scale of resources about to pour into an Alaska Senate seat that both parties are treating as genuinely competitive.