An ad from a Democratic-aligned super PAC claims Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan “voted to raise Alaskans’ healthcare costs by $1,800 and on that same day voted to give himself a $500,000 taxpayer-funded payout.” But that’s not the whole story, and the ad leaves the false impression that Sullivan received that money.
The words shown on the screen suggest the senator cashed in on the “taxpayer-funded payout.” He didn’t. Viewers see the words “gave himself a $500,000 payout,” and at the end of the ad, “Dan Sullivan cashing in while Alaskans pay the price.”
Here’s the context missing from the healthcare claim: Sullivan voted in favor of a compromise bill to end a government shutdown in November 2025. The bill did not include an extension of enhanced federal Affordable Care Act subsidies — as many Democrats argued it should have. But the following month, Sullivan was one of four Republicans who voted in favor of a failed bill proposed by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer to extend the ACA subsidies. Just 3.2% of Alaskans are enrolled in ACA insurance plans, so the expiration of the subsidies affected a small percentage of the state’s population.
The claim that Sullivan “voted to give himself a $500,000 taxpayer-funded payout” refers to the bill’s inclusion of a provision that allowed eight Republican senators — including Sullivan — to seek damages from the federal government related to phone data obtained on them during the special counsel investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Sullivan later said he only learned of the provision’s inclusion when reading the bill just prior to his vote. He vowed that he would not sue the government in pursuit of a payout and said he supported the House repealing that provision, which is what ultimately happened.
The ad comes from WinSenate, a super PAC that works to elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate. The incumbent Sullivan is seeking to retain his Senate seat in a race against Democrat Mary Peltola, a former U.S representative. The Cook Political Report rates the race as a toss up.
The ad features a commercial fisherman lamenting the rising cost of insurance, diesel and food.
“Everything’s gone up, and Dan Sullivan just keeps voting to raise our costs even higher,” the man says.
A narrator then makes the claims about Sullivan’s votes.
“Dan Sullivan doesn’t get it,” the fisherman says. “It’s like we’re drowning out here and he’s throwing us cinder blocks from a yacht.”
Obamacare Subsidies
In the waning months of the congressional calendar in 2025, Democrats sought to extend enhanced subsidies, which were first passed by Democrats in 2021 as part of pandemic relief legislation, for those buying coverage on the ACA marketplaces. Many Democrats argued a government funding bill to end a government shutdown in the fall of 2025 — and the small amount of leverage that afforded Democrats — was the last best opportunity to prevent the expiration of the enhanced subsidies.
A compromise funding bill to end the shutdown, however, ultimately did not include an extension of the enhanced subsidies that were due to expire at the end of that year. On Nov. 10, 2025, Sullivan voted for the bill, which passed 60-40. It was supported by all but one Republican in the Senate and seven Democrats. That day, Sullivan also voted against allowing consideration of an amendment proposed by Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin to extend the enhanced subsides for another year.
In an interview with Alaska’s News Source four days before the vote, Sullivan blamed the enhanced subsidies for driving up the cost of healthcare premiums. Sullivan said he was working with a bipartisan group “looking to reform these subsidies.”
Sullivan said that he was “working very diligently on reforms and extensions to these subsidies, and I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to get there.” He noted that Republican leaders were open to “negotiations on this,” but he said “holding people as hostages” via the government shutdown was not the way to do it.
“Let’s get those negotiations and discussions going,” Sullivan said.
The following month, Sullivan and three other Republicans joined all of the Democrats in the Senate in support of advancing legislation introduced by Schumer to extend the enhanced premium subsidies for three years. The vote was 51-48, far short of the 60 votes necessary to move the legislation to final consideration.
Sullivan proposed an amendment to Schumer’s bill to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for two years. (That same day, Sullivan also voted to advance a Republican healthcare plan that included direct payments into people’s health savings accounts, and he offered an amendment to that bill as well to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for two more years. The Republican bill also failed to advance.)
Lauren French, a spokesperson for WinSenate, said Sullivan missed his chance to extend the enhanced healthcare subsidies when he supported “must-pass” legislation to end the government shutdown in November 2025 that did not address the enhanced subsidies.
“The December vote needed 60 votes and got 51,” French said. “Everyone knew it would fail. Sullivan voted yes once his vote could no longer change the outcome. When it could have been, he voted no. Taking easy votes when they don’t matter is the cheapest way to pretend to have courage.”
In a statement on Dec. 11 after casting his votes in favor of extending the enhanced subsidies, Sullivan again blamed the ACA for driving up healthcare premiums and Democrats for voting on legislation that allowed the subsidies to expire at the end of 2025.
“Nevertheless, there is little doubt that a lot of hard-working Alaskans, families, entrepreneurs and small business owners will be negatively impacted if these enhanced premium tax credits expire,” Sullivan said. “For that reason, I voted to move forward and consider both the Republicans’ and the Democrats’ proposed legislation. I offered amendments to both bills that would extend the enhanced premium tax credits for two years, include income caps, bar illegal immigrants from receiving these benefits, and include at least a nominal payment for all plans to clamp down on fraud and abuse which was recently documented by the Government Accountability Office. Now that both the Republican and Democrat proposals failed to advance, I will redouble my efforts to develop a compromise solution.”
Nate Adams, a spokesperson for the Sullivan campaign, told us via email, “Senate Democrats shut the government down for 43 days and held federal workers’ paychecks hostage over a policy fight. The bill that ended their shutdown didn’t raise a single Alaskan’s health care costs. Those subsidies expired on a deadline Democrats wrote themselves. And when the Senate voted on plans to lower health care costs, Senator Sullivan voted yes on both the Democratic plan and the Republican plan.”
The enhanced subsidies expired at the end of 2025. The ad says that Sullivan “voted to raise Alaskans’ healthcare costs by $1,800.” Some Alaskans could have seen their annual out-of-pocket premiums increase by that much or more. But as we said, only 3.2% of Alaskans are enrolled in ACA plans.
The health policy research organization KFF estimated that in Alaska, average monthly premiums for the benchmark silver plan in the ACA marketplace would increase from $15 a month to $129 a month without enhanced subsidies for a 40-year old making $32,000, and from $463 per month to $706 per month for a 60-year-old couple making $85,000.
‘$500,000 Taxpayer-Funded Payout’
As part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election, former special counsel Jack Smith obtained the phone “toll records” of eight Republican senators, including Sullivan. Although some of those senators alleged that their phones had been illegally “tapped” by Smith’s investigators, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, Smith said the records were “non-content records” that showed only “who a call was to, who a call was from, and the length of that call.”
Smith said he obtained the records in an effort to corroborate evidence that Trump and others on his team were calling senators to try to convince them to delay the certification of the results of the 2020 election.
“The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records, to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith said in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 25.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune added language to the bipartisan funding bill to end the government shutdown in 2025 that would allow any senator whose phone toll records were obtained without proper notification to sue the federal government for “$500,000 or the amount of actual damages.” That’s the origin of the WinSenate ad’s claim that Sullivan “voted to give himself a $500,000 taxpayer-funded payout.”
The last-minute addition of the provision drew quick rebuke from both Democrats and Republicans in the House. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said on Nov. 12, 2025, that he was “shocked” and “angry” about the provision’s inclusion in the funding bill, and he promised House Republicans would seek to repeal it.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died this year, applauded the provision and vowed to sue and seek much more than $500,000.
But several other senators whose toll records were obtained said they opposed the inclusion of the provision and would not seek damages. Sullivan was among them.
“Senator Sullivan first learned about this provision when he and his staff were reading the bill to reopen the government,” a Sullivan spokesperson, Amanda Coyne, told Alaska’s News Source on Nov. 14, 2025, several days after his vote for the funding bill. “He does not plan on suing and is supportive of the House bill to repeal the provision.”
“I’m constantly amazed that we’re willing to let politicians off the hook for their votes because later they pinky-promised they wouldn’t actually follow through,” French, the spokesperson for WinSenate, told us. “The bill he voted for included the $500,000 taxpayer-funded bailout provision. Only after the bailout became public and sparked widespread bipartisan outrage did he say he wouldn’t sue and backed a repeal. Changing your mind after it became a political liability shouldn’t be an excuse or a cover.”
On Nov. 19, 2025, the House voted unanimously for a bill to repeal “the authority for a Senator to bring a civil action against the federal government if an internet service provider … accesses or discloses, data from the Senator’s office to provide to a federal agency without following prescribed notice requirements.” But that bill was never taken up in the Senate, so the House in January again unanimously added a repeal of the provision to a must-pass appropriations bill. Sullivan voted for that bill, and it was ultimately signed into law.
“Senator Sullivan voted to reopen the federal government, not to pay himself,” Sullivan campaign spokesperson Adams told us via email. “The provision this ad attacks was tucked into a must-pass bill released just hours before the vote. … Senator Sullivan said publicly that he would not sue and that he supported repeal, and then he voted to repeal it. He has never sought a dime from this provision, and he never will.”
Sullivan didn’t get any $500,000 “payout.” The ad, however, leaves the false impression that he earned something from the vote. It ends by saying that Sullivan is “cashing in while Alaskans pay the price.”
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