Dan Sullivan has been one of Alaska's U.S. Senators since 2015 — that's 11 years in Washington. He likes to show up in a Carhartt jacket and work boots, the regular-guy Alaskan. But the record tells a different story. Here are three things worth knowing.
1. Golf resorts for him, gas-money guilt trips for you
Dan Sullivan sells himself as a working-class Alaskan. Meanwhile, his campaign groups have spent more than $1.5 million at luxury hotels and golf resorts since 2015 — nearly his entire Senate career.
Where's the money going? A Palm Springs golf resort where The Bachelorette was filmed. A Kiawah Island resort — even during a government shutdown. The Phoenician in Scottsdale, where rooms can run $9,500 a night. In early 2026, 92% of his food and lodging spending was outside Alaska. That's not Alaskan money coming home. It's outside donor cash, spent far from the people he represents.
And here's the part that stings: while doing all this, he was emailing Alaskans begging for $3, $5, and $10 to help him "pay for gas" — as Alaska gas hit $5.20 a gallon and his campaign sat on $7 million in the bank.
2. He bet against Alaska's own fishermen
Sullivan calls himself a champion of Alaska's fishing industry. Then he quietly traded stock in Mowi — the world's largest farmed-salmon company and a direct competitor to Alaska's wild-salmon fishermen. Worse, he failed to disclose those trades for months, violating the federal STOCK Act.
Then there's Pebble Mine. Sullivan has a nearly two-decade record of advocacy for the massive mining project — one most Alaskans oppose because it threatens Bristol Bay, the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. Asked about his Pebble ties during a live Q&A, he reportedly just walked off without answering.
A champion of the fishing industry doesn't invest in its biggest rival or push a mine that could wreck its best fishery.
3. He keeps getting caught bending the truth
When did it become okay for our leaders to just lie to us? Sullivan has a habit of stretching the truth — from parroting the false claim that Democrats want to give Medicaid to "illegals," to a long trail of fact-checks that don't hold up.
You can read the receipts at PolitiFact and FactCheck.org. If you can't trust him to be straight with you about the basics, it's fair to ask what else he's shading.
What it all adds up to
These aren't three separate scandals. They're three versions of the same thing: a senator who says one thing to Alaskans and does another when he thinks no one's checking. The regular-guy image, the fishing-industry champion, the straight shooter — each one falls apart on contact with his own record.
After 11 years, that gap between the pitch and the paperwork isn't a slip. It's the pattern. In 2026, Alaskans get to decide whether the costume still fools them.
