Mystery Group Spends Millions on Ad Boosting Little-Known Conservative in Alaska Senate Race, Claiming Sullivan Too Liberal

A shadowy new super PAC is running an ad boosting a Republican Senate candidate in Alaska — though that candidate is not Senator Dan Sullivan. Alaska Values PAC is now up with a spot urging Alaskans to vote for Gerald Heikes, the little-known fourth-place Republican finisher in the primary, claiming Mr. Sullivan is too liberal for the state. The ad is targeted at hardline conservative voters, aiming to get them to keep Mr. Sullivan off of their ranked-choice ballots this year. Mr. Heikes has barely registered in the polls and has no chance of winning, though given the Senate race could be decided by just a few thousand votes, depressing that conservative turnout could cost Mr. Sullivan and help hand Democrats the Senate majority. Mr. Sullivan, the two-term lawmaker, is hoping to fend off the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, who previously represented Alaska in the U.S. House of Representatives and is now leading Mr. Sullivan in the polls. Under Alaska’s system, the top-four vote-getters in the statewide primary move on to the general election, where voters then use a ranked-choice ballot to pick their senator. Based on current polling, Ms. Peltola is favored to narrowly defeat Mr. Sullivan in the third round of ballot tabulations.During the primary, Ms. Peltola placed first, followed by Mr. Sullivan. In third place was a man named Dan J. Sullivan — a retired teacher with the same name as the senator — who was allegedly coaxed into the race by Ms. Peltola’s allies and Democratic operatives to try to spoil the senator Mr. Sullivan’s chances at winning re-election by confusing voters. A man named David Leslie then came in fourth place, though he dropped out of the race, allowing Mr. Heikes to take the final spot on the general election ballot. Mr. Heikes received one percent of the vote in the primary.Now, a super PAC with no disclosed donors is running a new ad trying to get conservatives to vote only for Mr. Heikes and leave Mr. Sullivan off of their ballots — something that would clearly redound to the benefit of Ms. Peltola. The ad likens Mr. Sullivan to Senator Lisa Murkowski, the four-term moderate GOP lawmaker who voted to convict President Trump at his 2021 impeachment trial. “Lisa Murkowski’s the traitor who voted to convict Trump. She and Sullivan both vote for wasteful spending and giveaways,” the ad from Alaska Values PAC states. “Alaska’s already got one Lisa Murkowski — we don’t need two.”“Gerald Heikes is a true conservative who will fight for us. Only rank Heikes,” the ad’s narrator says. According to the Federal Election Commission, Alaska Values PAC was incorporated in early September, and has not yet disclosed any of its donors. With no donations reported thus far, the group has received all of its money after the end of the third quarter FEC deadline, which was the last day of September. The super PAC will not be required to disclose its funders until the end of the year, nearly two months after election day.According to PaidForPolitics — a nonprofit site that compiles fundraising and spending data from the FEC — Alaska Values PAC is already spending heavily in the state. The data compiled shows the group spending $1.7 million to boost Mr. Heikes in the general election, and another $1.7 million to go negative against Mr. Sullivan, for a grand total of $3.4 million spent as of Monday.The Alaska race has been marred by accusations that Ms. Peltola’s campaign helped put the other Mr. Sullivan — the retired teacher who had never before sought public office — on the ballot this year. According to a New York Times report, Ms. Peltola’s aides and political operatives and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee helped find a man named “Dan Sullivan” to put on the ballot to intentionally confuse voters. Ms. Peltola and her campaign have denied the accusations. The Justice Department is now suing to guarantee that the Alaska Senate result will not be immediately certified is someone other the Mr. Sullivan the senator does not win re-election. Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the lawsuit is not about denying Ms. Peltola a seat in the Senate, but rather that the state is prepared to investigate the possibility of Mr. Sullivan losing his race due to confusion rather than the political gravity of 2026.On Wednesday, Mr. Trump himself called for Ms. Peltola and the non-senator Mr. Sullivan to be stripped of their spots on the Senate ballot this year. “Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Mystery Group Spends Millions on Ad Boosting Little-Known Conservative in Alaska Senate Race, Claiming Sullivan Too Liberal

Mystery Group Spends Millions on Ad Boosting Little-Known Conservative in Alaska Senate Race, Claiming Sullivan Too Liberal

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