Team Sullivan launches PeltolaLies.com to answer Democrat attacks

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 3, 2026 – For nearly a year, national Democrats treated Sen. Dan Sullivan like a political punching bag.

They spent millions of dollars pounding away at the Alaska Republican before Democrats had even formally launched former Rep. Mary Peltola as their Senate candidate. Once Peltola entered the race, the attacks became more frequent, more personal, and more detached from the facts.

Team Sullivan has now decided to punch back.

On Wednesday, Alaskans for Dan Sullivan launched PeltolaLies.com, a campaign website built to answer 10 of the accusations Peltola and her Lower 48 allies have leveled against the two-term senator.

Peltola is pictured, flanked by Democrat-socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer. Across the trio, in large yellow letters, are the words “PELTOLA LIES.”

“When you don’t have a record to run on, you build your campaign on lies,” the site declares.

It is Sullivan’s sharpest counterattack yet after months of Democrat advertising portraying him as everything from a crooked insider to an enemy of Alaska fishermen, military families, seniors and low-income residents.

“Elections should be about your record, your vision, and, of course, the truth,” Sullivan said in announcing the website. “My opponent has no record — zero bills signed into law in two terms — and the vision for her and her liberal allies for Alaska is not to help Alaska, but to target Alaska, to shut us down.”

“When you don’t have a record, when you don’t have a vision, they resort to slander,” he said. “They resort to lies.”

Lie No. 1 addresses insider trading.

The first item takes on Peltola’s accusation that Sullivan violated insider-trading laws. The campaign says Sullivan’s investments are held in broad-based mutual funds over which he does not direct individual trades.

The dispute involved individual stocks Sullivan and his siblings inherited after their parents died. Independent financial advisers sold the stocks without Sullivan’s prior knowledge. Sullivan filed the required disclosure forms after learning of the transactions, and no fine, charge, or penalty was imposed.

That is a considerable distance from “insider trading,” a phrase that suggests a public official secretly profited from government information.

The site notes that Sullivan is also a co-sponsor of legislation that would prohibit members of Congress and their immediate families from trading individual stocks.

Lie No. 2 concerns Jeffrey Epstein.

A Peltola advertisement accused Sullivan of casting “the deciding vote” to keep the Epstein files hidden. That is a lie, according to FactCheck.org.

Sullivan voted against taking up an amendment attached to an unrelated bill. But he supported the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed the Senate and became law. There was no single Sullivan vote that kept the files permanently hidden, as Peltola’s ad suggested.

The website turns the attack around, noting that Peltola received more than $140,000 from donors described by the Sullivan campaign as Epstein associates.

Lie No. 3 concerns personal wealth.

The third alleged lie is that Sullivan’s personal wealth quadrupled while he served in the Senate.

Sullivan’s assets are largely invested in funds that followed the broader stock market during a period of significant growth. Alaska Public Media previously noted that someone who invested in a broad-market mutual fund when Sullivan entered the Senate would also have seen the investment roughly quadruple. In other words, the growth is evidence of long-term investing, not evidence of corruption.

The Sullivan campaign contrasts that with Peltola paying herself more than $5,500 a month from her campaign account and receiving nearly half a million dollars for lobbying work after voters removed her from Congress.

Peltola has also claimed Sullivan voted to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. No such cuts occurred in Alaska and, in fact, Alaska is expected to receive  $1.4 billion Alaska through the Rural Health Transformation Program championed by Sullivan.

A related Peltola attack claims Sullivan voted to take Medicaid from the people who need it most.

But the reality is the new federal provisions simply require certain able-bodied adults without dependent children to work, attend school or volunteer for approximately 20 hours a week. Children, pregnant women, seniors, people with disabilities and certain caregivers are protected, while all Alaska Natives are exempted from the work requirement. Read that again: All Alaska Natives are exempted from work requirement for welfare.

Peltola has branded the Working Families Tax Cut Act a giveaway “only for millionaires and billionaires.” Sullivan’s answer is straightforward: The law did not reduce the top income-tax rate, which remains 37%.

The law prevented expiring tax provisions from raising taxes, increased the child tax credit, established tax deductions for tips and overtime, and provided an additional deduction for seniors. Sullivan also voted for an unsuccessful amendment from Maine Sen. Susan Collins that would have raised the rate on incomes above $25 million.

Then there is Peltola’s attempt to label Sullivan a “career politician” benefiting from a rigged system.

Sullivan’s response is to point to his 30 years of active and reserve service in the Marine Corps, from which he retired as a colonel, along with the 63 Sullivan-sponsored bills his campaign says became law during his two Senate terms.

The website also invites voters to compare attendance records.

During her five terms in the Alaska House, Peltola missed 794 of 4,265 votes, or 18.6%, according to the campaign’s tally. She missed 22 of 60 Bethel City Council meetings from 2011 through 2013 and 235 of 1,370 recorded votes during her time in Congress.

“Imagine telling your boss you’re taking one day off every week,” the website says. “No wonder Alaskans fired her.”

The eighth entry tackles Peltola’s claim to support Alaska oil and gas development.

Peltola marketed herself as pro-resource development while in Congress, particularly by supporting the Willow project. But the Sullivan campaign points to several less convenient votes. She voted against the Lower Energy Costs Act and voted “present” when the House considered her own Alaska Right to Produce Act. She also opposes the broader energy legislation Sullivan helped pass to reopen opportunities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Cook Inlet.

The ninth claim involves Peltola’s military record. She voted against a House defense package containing a 5.2% military pay increase, troop housing at Fort Wainwright and the JBER runway extension.

Finally, the site answers Peltola’s claim that Sullivan sides with Lower 48 trawlers over Alaska fishing families.

Sullivan points to his Bycatch Reduction Act, proposed restrictions on bottom trawling, mandatory use of salmon-excluder devices, increased monitoring and his work to keep Russian seafood out of the American market. Peltola built much of her political brand around the slogan “fish, family and freedom,” yet did not get a fisheries bill—or any bill she sponsored—signed into law during her tenure in Congress.

The website marks a change in tone for Sullivan. After absorbing wave after wave of national Democrat advertising, the senator is no longer content to issue polite corrections while Peltola’s campaign pounds away at him.