Politics

Nervous? Dems Spend Big Following Sullivan’s Alaska GOP Primary Win

Rachel Stoltzfoos Staff Reporter
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Just hours after Dan Sullivan won Alaska’s Republican primary, Democratic groups allied with Sen. Mark Begich went on a spending spree against the state’s former attorney general.

Several groups are spending more than $600,000 combined on attack ads and pro-Begich mailers, as the important Senate race heats up.

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund announced it’s largest ad purchase this election cycle Wednesday, saying it will spend $65,000 over 10 days in an effort to define Sullivan as a member of the GOP’s supposed War on Women, according to a spending report from The Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay.

The ads are “to remind voters that he opposes abortion access for most Alaska women, believes the government should control what women can do with their bodies, and won’t say whether he would support the Violence Against Women Act,” the fund said in a statement.

The super PAC backing Sen. Begich, Put Alaska First, told the FEC Wednesday it paid Waterfront Strategies $490,377 to produce and run a 30-second ad. “There’s two things you need to know about Dan Sullivan,” fisherman Mike Sparks says in the ad. “He’s not from Alaska, and he supports the Pebble Mine.”

Begich has been working to cast Sullivan as an outsider, because he is originally from Ohio. The Pebble Mine is a controversial mineral exploration project.

“I just don’t trust Dan Sullivan to make good decisions for Alaska,” Sparks adds.

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A newer group, Alaska SalmonPAC, funded by the League of Conservation Voters and its Alaska affiliate, told the FEC Wednesday it spent $60,399 on pro-Begich mailers.

Sen. Begich has raised about $6.3 million for his campaign, and has already spent more than $3 million on attack ads against Sullivan.

Sullivan has raised a little over $4 million for his campaign.

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