{"id":395584,"date":"2026-07-12T12:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/395584\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T12:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:32:11","slug":"alaska-senate-race-pits-sullivan-vs-sullivan-is-it-a-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/395584\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Senate race pits Sullivan vs. Sullivan. Is it a plot?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the fight for control of the U.S. Senate<\/a> grows increasingly competitive, eyes are turning north to Alaska and a contest pitting, among its contestants, Dan Sullivan vs. Dan Sullivan \u2014 and, no, it\u2019s not about a candidate living a double life or wrestling demons within himself.<\/p>\n

Confused? <\/p>\n

That may be the point.<\/p>\n

Daniel S. Sullivan is Alaska\u2019s two-term Republican senator. He\u2019s seeking reelection in November. <\/p>\n

Daniel J. Sullivan is a retired school teacher and political novice. He calls himself an independent Republican cut from the same polar-fleece lining as the state\u2019s maverick GOP senator, Lisa Murkowski<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Political handicappers give Daniel J. Sullivan little chance of winning the highly competitive race. So is there some other reason he\u2019s running? Is his presence on the ballot intended to draw enough befuddled voters away from the incumbent to elect his Democratic challenger, former Rep. Mary Peltola<\/a>?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Republicans think. And you don\u2019t have to be standing on the banks of the Kenai River <\/a>to smell something fishy.<\/p>\n

When Daniel J. Sullivan launched his campaign in May, he did so as plain old \u201cDan Sullivan,\u201d with a website closely resembling that of the incumbent. The press release announcing his candidacy was written by one \u201cAmber Lee.\u201d There is an Alaska political strategist named Amber Lee who has supported Peltola in the past.<\/p>\n

(For such a sparsely populated state, there sure are a lot of doppelgangers in this political saga.)<\/p>\n

Election officials say Daniel J. Sullivan asked to appear on the ballot as a Republican, even though he hadn\u2019t previously been affiliated with the party. In fact, over the years he\u2019d contributed money to Democrats, including Peltola. He also asked to be identified on the ballot as \u201cDan S. Sullivan\u201d before changing his mind, an attorney for the state told Alaska\u2019s Supreme Court, which took up the matter late last month. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not an innocent mistake, or random mistake,\u201d Chris Murray told the justices. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of other letters in the alphabet that could have been a typo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The political consultant Amber Lee declined to comment when reached by the Anchorage Daily News. She did not respond to an email from your friendly political columnist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For his part, Daniel J. Sullivan denied any malice or mischievous intent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my choice,\u201d he told the Associated Press. He said he had no contact with Peltola\u2019s campaign \u2014 \u201czero, none, zilch\u201d \u2014 and denied anyone from the state Democratic Party or any national Democratic operatives had contacted him to run.<\/p>\n

Peltola\u2019s campaign has adamantly denied any involvement. So, too, have the Alaska Democratic Party and the Democrat\u2019s national Senate campaign committee.<\/p>\n

After an investigation, Daniel J. Sullivan was removed from the Aug. 18 primary ballot<\/a>. Carol Beecher, head of Alaska\u2019s Division of Elections, said his candidacy was intended to \u201cconfuse or mislead\u201d voters.<\/p>\n

\"Sen. <\/p>\n

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) attends meetings at the U.S. Capitol in 2025.<\/p>\n

(Francis Chung \/ Politico via Associated Press)<\/p>\n

But the state\u2019s high court overturned that decision, instructing elections officials to figure out a way to keep Daniel J. Sullivan\u2019s name on the ballot \u201cwithin the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been nearly 20 years since the state sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, but this election looks to offer the party its best shot in years, thanks to Peltola. <\/p>\n

Jessica Taylor, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, called her \u201cthe ideal recruit,\u201d given Peltola\u2019s fundraising prowess and her ability to outperform other Democrats by avoiding the toxic taint of the national party. (Peltola\u2019s slogan \u2014\u201dFish, family and freedom\u201d \u2014 is about as far removed from the Whole Foods-shopping, Prius-driving Democratic image as it gets.)<\/p>\n

Democrats need to win four seats in November to take control of the Senate, from a menu that includes Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas while, at the same time, hanging on to contested Senate seats in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. The Cook Political Report rates Alaska<\/a> as one of the few toss-up races in the bunch.<\/p>\n

The state has a ranked-choice election system in which the top four vote-getters<\/a> advance to November. Ivan Moore, who does nonpartisan polling in Alaska, said that system virtually ensures Sullivan and Sullivan will face off against each other in a runoff that includes Peltola. At that point, Moore suggested, the choice to most voters will be clear.<\/p>\n

Under the solution devised by state election officials, the senator will be listed as \u201cSullivan, Dan S.\u201d and as \u201c(Registered Republican) Incumbent.\u201d His challenger will be identified as \u201cSullivan, Daniel J. Jr.\u201d with no party affiliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI imagine there\u2019s some people out there who don\u2019t know what the word \u2018incumbent\u2019 means,\u201d Moore said. \u201cBut I find it pretty hard to believe that people who are dead set on voting for Dan S. Sullivan, the senator, are going to go in the voting booth and vote for the wrong person when Dan S. has the word \u2018incumbent\u2019 next to his name and Dan J. doesn\u2019t have any party affiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political hijinks are nothing new. But the level of partisan gamesmanship seems to be growing as the old saying about all being far in love and war is increasingly applied to campaigns and elections.<\/p>\n

It was something of a novelty in 2002 <\/a>when Democrats meddled in the California Republican primary to promote their preferred candidate<\/a>. Now it\u2019s common practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Redistricting, or redrawing the nation\u2019s congressional lines to reflect changes in population, used to occur once a decade following the national census. But spurred by President Trump<\/a>, the last year has seen an arms race among states<\/a>, including California<\/a>, which gerrymandered their political maps to boost a preferred party and, essentially, decide House races before a single ballot is cast.<\/p>\n

Politics, another old saying goes, ain\u2019t beanbag. <\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t have to be this slanted and cynical. There\u2019s no need for fishy-smelling candidates like Daniel J. Sullivan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the fight for control of the U.S. Senate grows increasingly competitive, eyes are turning north to Alaska…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4162,159062,7167,3705,159060,159059,1751,25662,27490,159061,48,52,51,47,50,49,11053,24696,159058,225,72],"class_list":["post-395584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alaska","tag-amber-lee","tag-ballot","tag-campaign","tag-dan-sullivan","tag-daniel-j-sullivan","tag-democrats","tag-election-official","tag-incumbent","tag-ivan-moore","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-november","tag-party","tag-peltola","tag-state","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}