Alaska News

Sullivan reports $275,000 in bank after successful US Senate campaign

Alaska's U.S. Sen.-elect Dan Sullivan ended the first campaign finance reporting period after his Nov. 4 election victory with more than $275,000 in the bank, according to a filing this month with the Federal Election Commission.

Sullivan, a Republican, went into debt to win his primary campaign, but as of Nov. 24, he had $277,000 cash on hand, thanks in part to tens of thousands of dollars in donations he received from political action committees after the election.

Those donations included $2,500 from the Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchisees PAC on Nov. 5, and Sullivan also reported received $5,000 from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's political committee, SarahPac, on Election Day, according to the filing.

Other disclosures in Sullivan's filing include the fact that his campaign paid $15,000 to a Montana man, Brock Lowrance, for "strategic campaign consulting" on Oct. 29.

Lowrance also served as a spokesman for a successful Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Montana, Steve Daines, earlier in the fall. Reached by phone Tuesday, Sullivan's campaign manager refused to answer a question about what Lowrance did for the campaign; an email sent to Daines' campaign was not returned.

Sullivan's opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, ended the reporting period with $52,000 in the bank and $44,000 in debts, his filing said.

In addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending on television and radio advertisements, Begich's campaign also reported spending $900 at a local bar, Buckaroo Club, the night after the election.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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