Dueling Dan Sullivans? Alaska blocks 'sham' candidate from ballot after name confusion drama

FOX Local
Published June 15, 2026 6:16 PM EDT

FILE - Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks during the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for Lt. Gen. Francis L. Donovan, nominee to be commander of the U.S. Southern Command, and Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, nominee to be director of t …

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The Brief

    • Alaska election officials ruled that a Republican Senate candidate named Dan Sullivan cannot appear on the primary ballot against incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
    • Officials said the challenger’s candidacy appeared intended to confuse voters rather than represent a good-faith campaign.
    • The challenger denies wrongdoing and may appeal the decision before ballots are printed.

A man who had the same name and party affiliation as the Republican incumbent in Alaska’s Senate race is ineligible to appear on the state’s August primary ballot. 

Dig deeper:

Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, in a letter sent to challenger Dan Sullivan, said she concluded that his declaration of candidacy "was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy for the office of United States Senator,but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality."

Sullivan can appeal the decision, but ballots are due to be printed on June 28.

Dan Sullivan v. Dan Sullivan

The backstory:

The challenger Sullivan filed to be on the ballot just days before the June 1 candidate deadline. 

Sen. Dan Sullivan, the incumbent, called him a "sham" candidate and alleged he was working with Democrats to boost Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s chances in the race. 

Both the challenger Sullivan and Peltola’s campaign have denied the allegation.

Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom a week ago announced an investigation into the challenger Sullivan’s run, citing "credible allegations" that he declared his candidacy "in coordination with another candidate and campaign" with an intent to confuse and "manipulate" voters. 

Later, two complaints seeking to disqualify the challenger were filed by Alaska Republican Party Chair Carmela Warfield.

Sullivan (the challenger), a 69-year-old retired teacher from the small, southeast Alaska fishing community of Petersburg, has said he’s done nothing wrong and insisted that Dahlstrom lacked a legal basis to exclude him from the ballot. He said in a recent interview he has been weighing a run for years and called sharing a name with Sullivan a "matter of fate."

The other side:

On Friday, protesters gathered outside the Division of Elections office in Juneau, opposing efforts to remove the challenger Sullivan from the ballot. Among them was Ben Muse of Juneau.

He said he felt the issue could have been addressed using middle initials to distinguish between the candidates but had been "blown way out of proportion."

"This has nothing to do with whether you support this guy as a candidate," he said. "It’s supporting his right to be on the ballot."

The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press and previous reporting by FOX. 

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