The race in Alaska between incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich and his Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan, has been a battleground for outside groups, which have spent millions of dollars seeking to influence national policy on hot-button issues from health care to environmental regulation.
But one area of the Alaska race that's drawn minimal outside interest so far is gun control and Second Amendment rights.
The National Rifle Association announced last week it would be spending more than $11 million on elections this fall, and running TV ad campaigns backing Republicans in three key Senate races in Arkansas, Colorado, and North Carolina. More NRA ads are scheduled to boost Republicans in tight Senate races in four other states -- but not in Alaska.
Groups pushing gun control have stayed out of the race as well. Everytown for Gun Safety, the group backed by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced more than 100 endorsements in federal and state races on Monday, including in more than 15 U.S. Senate contests.
Typically, gun control advocates have been more inclined to back Democrats, given that party members tend to be more supportive of their efforts. But in this fall's election, it's unlikely they'll back Begich, since he broke with members of his party and voted against stricter background checks for gun buyers in a key U.S. Senate vote last year.
Bloomberg actually made an unusual threat earlier this year to attack Democrats who oppose gun control -- but his group is not going after Begich. Neither is Americans for Responsible Solutions, the anti-gun-violence group co-founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords after she was nearly killed in a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona.
"Begich has voted the wrong way on everything," Josh Horwitz, the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said in an interview. "He's terrible on the issue and didn't do anything and didn't give us anything. I don't think there's any opportunity to get in there in that race and support him."
But the alternative, Horwitz added, "isn't any better."
A spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety declined to comment for this story, while a spokesperson for Americans for Responsible Solutions didn't respond to a request for comment.
The NRA, which typically backs Republicans, announced its endorsement of Gov. Sean Parnell's re-election campaign Tuesday, but spokesman Andrew Arulanandam didn't respond to a request for comment about Alaska's U.S. Senate race. Arulanandam told the Associated Press in a story published Wednesday that it would not be endorsing Begich or Sullivan.
Horwitz, whose own group doesn't spend money on elections, said the NRA typically doesn't get involved in tight races where it could end up losing, or where there's no substantial difference between the two candidates.
Begich's most recent rating from the NRA was an A-minus, while Sullivan received an Aq. (The "q" signifies that the rating was based on a questionnaire, not a voting record.)
"Nationally, there's a clear divide between the parties on gun control," said Jerry McBeath, a professor of political science at University of Alaska Fairbanks. "But in Alaska, because we're a gotta-have-a-gun state, there's no clear divide between Republicans and Democrats."
The silence from the NRA and its opponents hasn't stopped Begich and Sullivan from bringing up gun rights and gun control during the campaign, however, and attempting to draw whatever distinctions they can.
A new ad from Sullivan released Monday features Elaina Spraker, an NRA instructor, sporting a camouflage jacket and saying she's "very, very frustrated" with Begich.
"He does not represent Alaskans or our values," Spraker says in the ad. "How do you vote for Barack Obama's anti-gun judges and still say you support the Second Amendment?"
To support Spraker's claims, a spokesperson for Sullivan provided a one-page document citing Begich's votes to confirm two U.S. Supreme Court court justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor -- both of whom were nominated by Obama and opposed by the NRA.
Asked if the justices had been involved in any court cases weakening gun rights, the spokesperson, Mike Anderson, referred to a 2010 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision affirming Second Amendment protections from state and local gun control laws, in which Sotomayor was in the dissenting minority.
In response to Sullivan's ad, Begich's campaign distributed a news release citing Begich's rating from the NRA. The release said Begich's rating is an A, though it is actually an A-minus.
In the release, Begich's campaign attacked Sullivan for "failing to stand up for Alaskans' right to self defense," which referred to a controversy leading up to the Aug. 19 Republican Party primary.
Sullivan had run a radio ad saying that he passed Alaska's "stand your ground" law when he served as the state's attorney general in 2010. But his Republican primary opponents, and the nonpartisan fact-checking website PolitiFact, said there was little evidence Sullivan had advocated for the law's passage -- and more evidence Sullivan's department had opposed the measure.
Ultimately, though, those distinctions won't make much of a difference to the general public, McBeath said, adding that "there's no significant difference in the opposition to gun control legislation" between the two candidates.
Horwitz, the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said that there was still the possibility for the NRA or pro gun-control groups to get involved in the campaign before Election Day, especially given the possibility for the Alaska seat to decide which party controls the Senate.
To the extent that Begich is one of 50 or 51 Democratic votes, Horwitz said, "yeah, that matters."
"But I think with all the priorities out there and all the people who really did stuff for us who are equally as vulnerable, I think that's where the money's going to go," he said.