Dan Sullivan likes to look like a regular Alaskan. The Carhartt jacket. The work boots. The just-folks act. But a new look at how his political operation spends money tells a very different story — one with valet parking and a 36-hole golf course.

Sullivan's political groups have spent more than $1.5 million at luxury hotels and golf resorts since 2015 — that's almost his entire time in the Senate. And while he was living large on his donors' dime, he was emailing Alaskans asking them to chip in a few bucks to help him "pay for gas."

You read that right.

$5 gas for you, golf resorts for him

In 2025 alone, Sullivan's groups spent $333,291 on lodging, meals, and catering. That's more than double what they spent the year before. In the first three months of 2026, 92% of his food and lodging spending happened outside Alaska. This is not money being spent in the state he represents. It's outside donor money, spent far away from the people he answers to.

Where did it go? Some of the highlights:

• $160,737 at La Quinta, a Palm Springs golf resort once used to film The Bachelorette.
• More than $151,000 at the Kiawah Island golf resort in South Carolina — site of a PGA Championship — including spending during a government shutdown.
• $21,000 at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Arizona, where rooms can run up to $9,500 a night.
• $3,500 at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Florida.

Now here's the part that should make every Alaskan angry. While all of this was happening, Sullivan's campaign sent out fundraising emails begging Alaskans for $3, $5, and $10 donations to help him "pay for gas." At the time, Alaska gas prices had climbed to around $5.20 a gallon — nearly a dollar above the national average. And his campaign already had $7 million sitting in the bank.

He didn't need your three dollars. He just wanted you to feel like you were on the same team.

"Self-Serving Sullivan"

The Alaska Democratic Party didn't mince words. Party Chair Eric Croft put it bluntly:

"While we're paying $5 for a gallon of gas, choosing between paying for groceries or health care, and struggling to afford housing, Self-Serving Sullivan has literally been wining and dining Lower 48 special interest donors at luxurious golf resorts."

That's the whole story in one sentence. While Alaskans were doing the math at the gas pump and the grocery store, their senator was picking up the tab at five-star resorts — with money raised off the very people who are struggling.

It's not just the resorts

The luxury habit isn't only on the road. Back in Washington, Sullivan dined at one upscale spot, Bistro Cacao, 21 times in 14 months, spending around $21,500 at a place The Washingtonian described as where "Capitol Hill power brokers fill the tables." He visited the 116 Club — a private DC haunt full of high-powered lobbyists — 10 times. He once dropped $5,376 in a single visit to Joe's Stone Crab.

This is who Sullivan spends his time with. Not Alaskans worried about heating oil. Lobbyists and special-interest donors, over expensive dinners, in rooms most of us will never see.

The pattern is the point

This is the same Dan Sullivan whose biggest personal asset is up to $5 million in his family's chemical company stock — a company that once paid nearly $61 million to settle federal fraud charges. The same senator who skips town halls when angry Alaskans show up to ask him questions. The same senator who voted for Trump's budget law that cuts Medicaid and food help for Alaska families.

Over and over, the story is the same. When it's his donors and his comfort, the money flows freely. When it's regular Alaskans, he asks them to pitch in.

We deserve a senator who spends his energy on us — not one who treats Alaska like an ATM and the rest of the country like a vacation.

Source

This post is based on reporting by American Journal News, drawing on spending records compiled by the Alaska Democratic Party.