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Alaska Supreme Court justices hear oral arguments in the case of Alaska Division of Elections vs. Daniel J. Sullivan regarding ballot eligibility on June 29, 2026. (KTOO \/ Gavel Alaska screenshot) <\/p>\nAlaska Supreme Court justices hear oral arguments in the case of Alaska Division of Elections vs. Daniel J. Sullivan regarding ballot eligibility on June 29, 2026. (KTOO \/ Gavel Alaska screenshot) <\/p>\n
Three hours after hearing oral arguments, the Alaska Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the namesake challenger to Sen. Dan Sullivan can appear on the Aug. 18 primary ballot. <\/p>\n
With four justices hearing the case, the court decided that Friday\u2019s order by Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews<\/a>, allowing Dan J. Sullivan to appear on the ballot, will stand. <\/p>\n The state Supreme Court also sent the issue to the Alaska Division of Elections \u201cto determine\u201d how Dan J. Sullivan \u201cshall be listed as a candidate within the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law,\u201d its order said. <\/p>\n \u201cA full opinion will be issued at a later date,\u201d the order<\/a> said. <\/p>\n Dan J. Sullivan, 70 and a retired teacher from Petersburg, registered to run for the Senate seat in late May. <\/p>\n He asked to appear on the ballot as a Republican, the same party as Sen. Dan Sullivan, though he hadn\u2019t previously affiliated as a Republican in 40-plus years of registering to vote in Alaska, the state asserted. <\/p>\n In mid-June, Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, a Republican, determined<\/a> that Dan J. Sullivan\u2019s declaration of candidacy was not filed in good faith and declared him ineligible to run. <\/p>\n The division had received complaints from the Alaska Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee alleging that Democrats had encouraged Dan J. Sullivan to run, in order to benefit the incumbent senator\u2019s top opponent, Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. <\/p>\n Sen. Sullivan, running for his third term, also alleges<\/a> that the challenger is a Democratic plant. <\/p>\n Dan J. Sullivan has maintained that he is running because he believes the senator has done a poor job serving Alaskans. He has rejected accusations that he is trying to trick voters. <\/p>\n In an interview Monday after the ruling, the Petersburg Sullivan said he was \u201chappy\u201d about the ruling. <\/p>\n He said he would plan his next steps, including completing paperwork to set up a committee to raise funds with the Federal Election Commission. <\/p>\n He plans to call it Sullivan for Senate, he said. <\/p>\n It will help him pay for campaign costs, including the attorney fees he\u2019s accumulated since the state launched its case. <\/p>\n \u201cI came out of the gate fairly quickly and got things rolling, and then I got hit with this, and it kind of took the wind out of the sails,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I need to sit down and plan with some folks who are helping and see which direction we want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he doesn\u2019t have any campaign events planned yet. But he\u2019ll be busy in July with family coming to town and salmon fishing for subsistence purposes. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind, it\u2019s been stressful, it\u2019s been hard telling reporters I can\u2019t talk about it\u201d while the case was in litigation, he said.<\/p>\n Incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan\u2019s campaign is \u201cdisappointed\u201d in the state Supreme Court ruling, according to campaign spokesperson Nate Adams. <\/p>\n Questions about how the candidate is listed<\/p>\n Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg said it\u2019s still unknown how the Division of Elections will list him on the ballot. <\/p>\n State regulations call for using middle initials on the ballot to distinguish between candidates of the same name, in this case Dan J. Sullivan and Dan S. Sullivan.<\/p>\n Adams, with Sen. Sullivan\u2019s campaign, said in a statement that \u201cwe are encouraged by the fact that the Director of the Division of Elections will be able to use her expertise to differentiate between the Petersburg fraud and the incumbent \u2014 Senator Dan Sullivan \u2014 to the benefit of Alaska voters.”<\/p>\n The Division of Elections on Monday did not immediately respond to a request on how it would distinguish the candidates. <\/p>\n The case has drawn national attention and involves a race that could determine control of the Senate in November. Several parties were allowed to file \u201cfriends of the court\u201d briefs in the case, including Iowa and 13 other states that supported the Division of Elections\u2019 argument. <\/p>\n Chief Justice Susan Carney and justices Jennifer Henderson, Jude Pate and Aimee Oravec heard the case.<\/p>\n Supreme Court Justice Dario Borghesan recused himself. He\u2019s related to one of the attorneys for Dan J. Sullivan, said Rebecca Koford, a spokesperson with the Alaska Court System. <\/p>\n Attorneys on both sides, seemingly anticipating that the court would rule in favor of the challenger, focused much of their arguments during Monday\u2019s hearing on what the Division of Elections could do. <\/p>\n Chris Murray<\/a>, who argued for the state but works for a Colorado law firm, had told the justices that the state preferred that they let the Division of Elections determine how to distinguish the candidates. <\/p>\n The state had proposed in its brief<\/a> to the state Supreme Court that it would list Dan J. Sullivan as a nonpartisan, while Sen. Dan Sullivan would be listed as a \u201cregistered Republican.\u201d <\/p>\n Jeffrey Robinson, the attorney representing Dan J. Sullivan, said that\u2019s not allowed. <\/p>\n If an independent candidate wants to register as a Republican to run for office, that\u2019s permissible, Robinson said. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no authority for the proposition that, in order to avoid confusion, the director can change the party affiliation,\u201d Robinson argued. <\/p>\n Under Alaska\u2019s election laws, all candidates regardless of party affiliation appear on the same ballot in the primary election, scheduled for Aug. 18. The top four vote-getters will advance to the November general election.<\/p>\n Carney on Monday said the case has moved at an \u201cextraordinary\u201d schedule. <\/p>\n Early last week, Dan J. Sullivan appealed to the courts to take up Beecher\u2019s decision disqualifying him. <\/p>\n In fast-tracked court proceedings, Matthews ruled<\/a> in favor of Dan J. Sullivan on Friday, saying that the Division of Elections\u2019 decision to keep him off the ballot \u201cwas based on a \u2018good-faith\u2019 requirement\u201d that doesn\u2019t appear in the U.S. Constitution, state statute or the division\u2019s regulations. The state immediately appealed, leading to the Alaska Supreme Court hearing Monday. <\/p>\n The hearing was live-streamed, but not held in person, with justices in different locations, Koford said. <\/p>\n The state faces a noon Tuesday deadline for printing ballots. <\/p>\n [A brief history of same-named political candidates, election hijinks and Dan Sullivans in Alaska<\/a>]<\/p>\n Legal authority and candidate intentions<\/p>\n In Monday\u2019s hearing, the justices centered many of their questions on whether the Alaska Division of Elections had the legal authority to determine that Dan J. Sullivan\u2019s name should not appear on the ballot. <\/p>\n Carney asked Murray why the division had chosen \u201cthe most extreme possible remedy\u201d by disqualifying Dan J. Sullivan from appearing on the ballot, instead of using a \u201clesser\u201d option to avoid voter confusion. <\/p>\n Murray argued that Dan J. Sullivan was clearly trying to deceive voters with his bid for office. <\/p>\n Early in June, Dan J. Sullivan even told the Division of Elections he wanted to appear on the ballot with the senator\u2019s middle initial, not his own, Murray said. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not an innocent mistake or a random mistake,\u201d Murray said. <\/p>\n Dan J. Sullivan retracted that request eight hours later, and said he would go by his middle initial, Murray said. <\/p>\n Justice Oravec wanted to know if that series of events warranted removing someone from the ballot. <\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is whether that justifies booting someone off the ballot versus mitigating what you\u2019re clearly authorized and empowered to do,\u201d Oravec said, such as using a candidate\u2019s middle initials. <\/p>\n Robinson, representing the Petersburg Sullivan, told the justices that even if a hypothetical candidate openly said that he wanted to deceive voters, the candidate could not be removed from the ballot. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have any regulations\u201d to determine whether a candidate is running for office with good intentions or not, Robinson said. <\/p>\n \u201cA rule that says you may not run if we think your motive is to confuse voters\u201d is subjective and \u201cdiscretionary in a way that can be used to advantage incumbents,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Dan J. Sullivan meets the qualifications in the U.S. Constitution to run office, Robinson said. He is at least 30 years old, has been a U.S. citizen for at least nine years and lives in the state he seeks to represent at the time of the election.<\/p>\n Robinson referenced the state Supreme Court\u2019s order<\/a> last year, which supported Beecher\u2019s determination in 2024 to allow felon Eric Hafner \u2014 who is serving a federal prison sentence outside of Alaska \u2014 to appear on the ballot as a Democrat in the race for Alaska\u2019s sole U.S. House seat. Hafner was not elected<\/a> and is running for the same seat this year. <\/p>\n In that ruling, the court noted that its precedence has favored candidates\u2019 access to the ballot when a case presents legal ambiguities.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen would there be a better time … to question the motives of someone\u2019s intent to run for office than a convicted felon living out of state who has no potential to come\u201d to Alaska and serve, he asked. <\/p>\n The state has argued that it has the ability under the Constitution to regulate the \u201cmanner\u201d of elections, allowing it to disqualify Dan J. in order to protect ballot integrity. <\/p>\n Justice Pate suggested that might be a valid argument. <\/p>\n In response to his question, Robinson said that people run for office all the time with \u201cun-American and unsavory\u201d goals in mind. <\/p>\n The voters would likely never elect them, but they\u2019re still allowed to be on the ballot, he said. <\/p>\n This is a developing story. Check back for updates. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Z6MTQKM5FJDNPPIJM2PS5TRKKI.jpg\")
Dan J. Sullivan from Petersburg, right, is challenging Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan, left, in Alaska’s 2026 U.S. Senate race. (Photos provided by Dan J. Sullivan, right, and by Bill Roth \/ ADN, left) <\/p>\n