President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’ll make a campaign swing through Alaska, to help U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan.
“Dan Sullivan's a great senator,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “Dan — I mean, you look at the things he's done. He would call me all the time because I think, I definitely know: Nobody has helped Alaska like Donald Trump.”
His remarks came during a press conference with travel industry executives. A reporter asked if he planned to go to Alaska to help a Republican in a tight race.
Trump won Alaska handily in 2024, “by a landslide,” as he put it in the press conference.
“Mr. President, you won it by 13 and a half points,” a reporter said, according to the C-SPAN video of the event. “Why is this race so close?”
Trump offered a reason: “They have a phony Dan Sullivan.”
Trump used much of the three minutes he spent on Alaska Wednesday disparaging the other Dan Sullivan in the race, Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg. Trump repeated many of the unproven allegations Sen. Sullivan and his supporters have made.
“The Democrats put up another man named Dan Sullivan,” Trump said. “So we have two Dan Sullivans over there. And by the way, the other man, who had never been in politics, had never voted. He hasn't voted for years. A totally pretty non-political person, I guess. But never had any thought of running. All of a sudden, he's running for the Senate in Alaska.”
The Petersburg candidate said Wednesday afternoon that he was out mushroom-hunting and hadn’t heard what the president of the United States said about him. After seeing a few transcribed sentences a reporter sent, he declined an interview request, saying he wanted to see the president’s remarks in context. He asserted, though, that he is a “very faithful voter.”
(He later sent a photo of a dozen fresh chanterelles on a dish cloth.)
The retired teacher got 2.5% of the primary vote. That put him in third place, well behind Democrat Mary Peltola and Sen. Sullivan. But, in Alaska’s top-four primary, it was enough to win him a spot on the November ballot.
The Petersburg man has consistently maintained that running was his own idea and that no one put him up to it. His campaign finance reports show no backing from super PACs or political parties. He’s raised a few thousand dollars, primarily from his Petersburg neighbors, and is spending his own money, too.
The senator is a loyal Trump ally and rarely breaks with him.
"Senator Sullivan looks forward to welcoming the President, and continuing their work of delivering real results for Alaska," campaign spokesman Nate Adams said by text.
A new poll of likely voters by Alaska Survey Research suggests the race between Peltola and Sen. Sullivan is extremely close, with Peltola just over 1 percentage point ahead, despite finishing more than 8 percentage points ahead of Sullivan in the Aug. 18 primary.
The same Alaska Survey Research poll shows Trump’s popularity in Alaska has dropped, with 56% now holding a negative view of the president. Morning Consult’s tracking polls suggest Alaskans’ net approval rating of Trump went negative starting late last year.
It’s not clear what effect a Trump visit would have on the race. In 2022, Trump held a rally in Anchorage to promote Republicans Kelly Tshibaka for U.S. Senate and Sarah Palin for U.S. House. Both lost. He also endorsed Gov. Mike Dunleavy's reelection that year and Dunleavy won.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a comment from the Sullivan campaign and information about President Trump's endorsement of Gov. Dunleavy.
