When Petersburg Republican Dan J. Sullivan entered the race against Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, he felt it was a good way to call out the notoriously constituent-adverse lawmaker over rising costs and his reflexive support of President Trump’s agenda.
“The senator is kind of famous for not speaking with constituents or reporters,” Petersburg Sullivan told the Anchorage Daily News. “I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated with the work the senator has done. Our ferry system is falling apart. The affordability crisis here is outrageous. Transportation costs are outrageous. Our education system is, is not flourishing by any means. The fishing economy is really struggling.”
But Republicans, including Sen. Sullivan and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have screamed bloody murder at having a second Dan Sullivan in the race, levying serious allegations of criminal wrongdoing against both the Petersburg Republican and Democratic candidate Mary Peltola. The claim is, essentially, that Peltola’s campaign orchestrated the whole thing with the intention of deceiving voters with a similar-sounding name.
“Everybody in Alaska knows I’m Dan Sullivan-R. So he’s trying to do that. Why?” the senator told reporters. “He’s not an R. He’s purposely trying to trick my constituents to rig the election for Peltola.”
Those are claims that Petersburg Sullivan and Peltola’s campaign flatly denies. And, as for the apparent confusion, it should be noted that Alaska voters successfully wrote in “Murkowski” in 2010.
But on Monday, Republicans escalated their attack on the Petersburg Sullivan.
That’s when Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom — who oversaw the Division of Elections’ decision to hand over a vast amount of confidential voter information to Trump’s Department of Justice, including signing an agreement that would give the federal government unprecedented control over who’s allowed to vote — announced she’s launched an investigation into his candidacy.
The announcement claims they have “credible allegations” that Petersburg Sullivan “filed for office in coordination with another campaign with the deliberate intent to confuse Alaska voters.”
“The Division of Elections has a fundamental obligation to protect the integrity of Alaska’s elections and ensure voters are not deceived about the identity of the candidates on their ballot,” Dahlstrom said in a prepared statement. “Serious allegations have been raised concerning this filing in the race for U.S. Senate, and the people of Alaska deserve a thorough and transparent investigation to ensure that the election is carried out properly and without deception.”
The statement doesn’t actually offer any evidence of such claims. Instead, it seems like the Division of Elections has taken the NSRC and Sen. Sullivan’s claims about Petersburg Sullivan’s connections to the Peltola campaign at face value. The only “credible” part seems, on its face, to be that it came from U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Dahlstrom’s “investigation” amounts to seven questions for Petersburg Sullivan that range from his past history as a Republican, whether he’s always gone by “Dan,” his process to set up his campaign, whether he talked to his campaign manager before he launched his campaign, and whether he has had any direct interactions with Peltola or the Alaska Democratic Party.
It also asks if he would be OK with being labeled as “Sullivan, Daniel James Jr. (non-incumbent)” rather than his preferred name as “Sullivan, Dan J.” Presumably, Sen. Sullivan will get the “incumbent” label, which is not typically used, and it could certainly be argued that that ballot design would be the state tilting the scales in his favor.
If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Division of Elections under Dahlstrom has given right-wing causes a boost.
In 2022, the Division of Elections broke from precedent to give the voter initiative seeking to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked choice voting system an opportunity to fix otherwise fatal errors for the signature-gathering process. At the end of 2025, the Division of Elections also transferred the state’s confidential voter file to the Department of Justice. It was a move that incensed legislators, who ultimately rejected the attorney general who signed off on the decision, because it ran contrary to the state’s strong constitutional privacy protections. Advocates worry the information and corresponding agreement, which Alaska was one of the few states to fully agree to, could be used to suppress voting and fuel violent ICE activity.
In the 2024 election, Dahlstrom dropped out of the race for the U.S. House, allowing an imprisoned Democrat who had never visited Alaska to advance to the general election, where Republican Nick Begich ultimately defeated then-U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola.
Republicans are also no strangers to the conduct they’re alleging. In 2021, a Florida Republican was charged after he was caught setting up a fake candidate with the same last name as a Democratic incumbent. Even in Alaska, the Anchorage Assembly races were marred by allegations that conservatives were behind a progressive candidate to siphon votes from a moderate in hopes of boosting the conservative. In that case, the evidence was even more clear with a well-known conservative operative serving as the progressive candidate’s campaign manager while also running an independent expenditure campaign boosting both the progressive and the conservative candidates.
More: State of the Race: Conservatives deploy shady tactics in attempt to regain Anchorage foothold
But judging by the state of the race, Sen. Sullivan may be in need of any boost he can get.
Sen. Sullivan’s popularity has tanked in Trump’s second term, with the Republican siding with the president on a litany of decisions that have harmed Alaskans, whether it be on health care, infrastructure development or affordability. Sullivan has also been a cheerleader of Trump’s costly and interminable war with Iran, which has driven energy prices soaring with no end in sight. Polling suggested he could be in trouble in a head-to-head race with Peltola, so even a few percentage points lost to a similar-sounding candidate could make the difference.
The Republican panic is, in large part, because they don’t feel all that confident about the race.
As for Dahlstrom’s very serious investigation, she gave Petersburg Sullivan until Wednesday to respond to her questions.
In a statement to the Division of Elections defending his candidacy, Petersburg Sullivan said there’s nothing in state law that would give Dahlstrom and the Division of Elections such sweeping power to decide who’s allowed to run. Her legal authority is limited to reviewing candidates’ qualifications, he said, not their motivations for running — and certainly not the Republican Party’s wishes for what the ballot should look like. He said the issue of identifying the candidates could be as simple as including a middle initial.
“I have every right to run for Senate. I am a registered Alaska voter. I filed an accurate and timely declaration of candidacy, and I have the constitutional qualifications: I am older than 30, I have been a U.S. citizen my whole life, and I reside in Alaska. I am running because I am tired of sitting back and watching our current Senator routinely fail to represent the interests of ordinary Alaskans like me. The fact that Senator Sullivan shares my first and last names adds insult to injury, motivating me to raise my hand as an alternative choice for Alaskans,” he said. “Senator Sullivan and NRSC have no right to exclude me from the ballot simply because we happen to share a name.”
The letter
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
