As the Senate campaign in Alaska transitions from the primary to the general election, Democrats think they have a potent attack against Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan that will particularly resonate in their state: gas prices.
As of Tuesday, which was primary day in Alaska, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in the state stood at roughly $4.83, which was more than 70 cents higher than the national average, according to AAA.
But that price was even higher in some of Alaska’s rural regions — in some cases, around $10 a gallon — where fuel and other commodities arrive by barge, according to Brett Watson, who teaches natural resource economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
“That price,” Watson told MS NOW, “is mostly dictated just by how many miles away, how remote the community is from the rest of the state.”
Because some of these rural areas in Alaska buy gas in large shipments, the pain at the pump could stick around for months — even if prices begin to fall elsewhere across the nation in the lead-up to Election Day.
Some rural Alaska communities, Watson noted, only receive one or two barge shipments per year, with the latest shipment dictating fuel prices. With fall and winter months just around the corner, waterways freeze and additional barge trips become impossible, meaning the higher prices Americans across the nation are experiencing right now could last for those Alaska voters well past when they cast their ballots in November.
Essentially, a price spike that could be temporary elsewhere will have staying power in Alaska until after Election Day. As Watson put it, “the price is locked in for months and months and months.”
All this has the potential to affect the U.S. Senate race in Alaska — and, with it, the balance of power in Washington.
Despite Donald Trump handily winning Alaska by comfortable, double-digit margins the past three presidential cycles, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola has been beating Sullivan in several polls, with affordability concerns being top of mind for most voters.
According to The Wall Street Journal, some voters in Alaska are beginning to grow frustrated with the Iran war, which Trump launched at the end of February and so far has not managed to resolve. A brief and shaky ceasefire — which contributed to a brief dip in gas prices — has since come and gone.
The situation has given Peltola an opening to make a powerful connection between two difficult issues for the GOP in 2026: the cost of living at home and Trump’s foreign conflict.
In the Senate race, Sullivan — long a proponent of expanding oil and gas leases — has continued to call for increased U.S. energy production as part of the solution to reining in prices. And he has touted how last year’s sweeping GOP reconciliation law included oil and gas lease sales.
In a recent campaign ad, he describes himself as someone who “defends oil and gas to lower costs.”
And in March, he wrote, “With the conflict in the Middle East driving higher gas prices for hard-working Americans, it’s more imperative than ever that we have policies promoting American energy independence and dominance.”
But Sullivan’s patience with high gas prices is notably different from his indignation four years ago, when gas prices peaked while Joe Biden was president.
In May 2022 — much like in May of this year, with Trump back in the Oval Office — gas prices surpassed $5 a gallon on average in Alaska.
In 2022, Sullivan described Alaskans as being “pummeled by the Biden administration’s ineptitude” and “devastated by these Biden policies that are driving up inflation to a 40-year high.”
He took to the floor of the U.S. Senate in May 2022 to give a more than 20-minute speech on energy policy. Alongside him, he displayed a photo of a gas pump with an “I did that!” sticker featuring Biden.
In his floor remarks, Sullivan accused Biden of curtailing domestic energy production and said gas prices are “having a devastating impact on Americans across the board, but particularly working families, middle-class families, people on fixed income.”
But as prices surpass those levels and devastate some Alaskan communities, Sullivan has been largely silent.
The Sullivan campaign did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment about the current gas prices, and whether the senator believes Trump deserves any blame, but MS NOW could not find any instance of the incumbent Republican senator criticizing Trump or the president’s policies that have led to higher fuel costs.
Peltola, meanwhile, has made gas prices and affordability a central tenet of her campaign pitch, criticizing Sullivan for not caring enough about reining in those costs.
In May, she wrote on X that “most people I know can’t afford to pay over $5 a gallon for their gas — let alone upwards of $10 – $20 or more in the Bush.”
“These fuel costs are sending us straight into a crisis. Alaska deserves a leader who treats it like one,” she added.
Last month, she wrote, “I’m an Alaska fisherman. I like my salmon wild-caught, my freezer full, and my gas cheap.”
And in another post, she railed against Sullivan’s votes opposing a war powers resolution to compel an end to the Iran conflict.
“We need leadership,” she wrote, “focused on lowering energy costs, not rubber-stamping forever wars.”
Of course, it is not just Peltola targeting Sullivan over gas prices.
Back in March, just weeks after Trump first launched the war with Iran, Majority Forward, a group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., launched an ad hitting Sullivan over high costs.
The group particularly pointed to gas prices.
“Costs are higher than ever,” the ad’s narrator says. “But Dan Sullivan keeps voting yes with his party leaders, no matter how much it hurts Alaska.”
The question now is whether gas prices can resonate beyond political ads.
For Democrats, the argument is simple: Sullivan spent years blaming Biden for high energy costs, and is now silent as his constituents face even steeper prices, revealing a distinctly partisan and hypocritical slant to his criticism.
For Republicans, the challenge is to focus on what Sullivan can realistically do to bring down costs, and argue that the high gas prices are a temporary expense for a safer world.
But in a state like Alaska, where temporary costs can reverberate far longer than anywhere else, Sullivan may have a more difficult time than other Republicans in convincing his voters that Trump’s trade-offs are worth it.
The post Why gas prices are a particularly potent attack against this GOP senator appeared first on MS NOW.
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