The Alaska Division of Elections, under the purview of Director Carol Beecher and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, has officially disqualified a Petersburg man named Dan Sullivan from running for office against Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan.
It’d be a shocking turn of events if it was just about anybody else involved in the race or the decision making — you have to wonder if there’d be such a mad dash to disqualify a Mary B. Peltola — but this outcome was pretty obvious the moment that Dahlstrom announced the launch of her investigation last week. From the outset, Sen. Sullivan, the Alaska Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have screamed bloody murder over Petersburg Sullivan’s entrance into the race, insisting that it must be the product of a vast criminal conspiracy by the allies of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola — who happens to be polling quite well against the increasingly unpopular Sen. Sullivan.
And it’s a narrative that many seem to buy as self-evident. Petersburg Sullivan couldn’t be motivated by, say, his own dissatisfaction with Sen. Sullivan.
“Everybody in Alaska knows I’m Dan Sullivan-R. So he’s trying to do that. Why?” the senator — who has been derisively called Ohio Dan long before Petersburg Sullivan got involved in the race — told reporters. “He’s not an R. He’s purposely trying to trick my constituents to rig the election for Peltola.”
Of course, those are claims that Petersburg Sullivan and Peltola’s campaign flatly deny, and we haven’t been presented with anything close to a smoking gun that actually proves a connection between the two campaigns. In an actual case of a ghost candidate designed to deceive voters, a Florida Republican was indicted because, among other things, he paid for the tuition of the ghost candidate’s child.
Nothing near as that has surfaced in this case.
Instead, the evidence that Beecher cobbles together in her disqualification letter are pretty milquetoast and relies on several leaps in logic:
- Petersburg Sullivan has never used the name “Dan” on his voter filings with the state, which Beecher suggests is proof that he’s trying to trick voters by going by Dan Sullivan now. (I also typically use my legal name on legal filings.)
- He requested to run as a Republican, which combined with use of the shortened version of Daniel “strongly suggests an intent to confuse yourself with the incumbent Senator.” (On this point, Petersburg Sullivan noted he was a member of the now-defunct Alaskan Independence Party, and picked Republican because it most closely aligned with his political beliefs.)
- His campaign website and logos that use the Alaska flag’s blue and gold with stars is too similar to Sen. Sullivan’s website. Apparently, Sen. Sullivan has a monopoly on using the Alaska State Flag as a motif for campaigns.
- A political consultant worked with also sometimes works with Democrats (but mostly on progressive causes around healthcare and isn’t a Democrat herself). While Beecher said that connection “is, in isolation innocuous,” the combination of him not using his full legal name, running as a Republican and using the Alaska State Flag as inspiration for his campaign materials “suggests a determined effort” to deceive voters.
So, to be clear, the state’s case is that none of the individual issues are, on their own, disqualifying. Instead, it’s all the red yarn that Sen. Sullivan and his allies have supplied tying them all together that proves something untoward is afoot.
“These facts force the conclusion that your declaration of candidacy was filed with the purpose of confusing or misleading the electorate and compromising the fairness of the ballot by attempting to access the ballot under a version you have never used (“Dan Sullivan”) and with a party affiliation (Republican) that you have never before professed,” Beecher wrote. “Indeed, I conclude that the preponderance of the evidence is that you chose this new nickname and party affiliation because that name and party affiliation happen to be the name and party affiliation of another candidate in the race.”
Whether the string of circumstances actually “force the conclusion” Petersburg Sullivan must be disqualified is likely something that the courts will ultimately decide. It’s a lot of inferences but without an explicit connection, it’s hard to see how the courts would approve of such a drastic move of denying someone the ability to run for elected office.
It’s also worth noting that the Division of Elections has the power to change the ballot design to help dispel any confusion. In one letter, the Division of Elections suggests listing Petersburg Sullivan as Daniel James Sullivan Jr, non-incumbent. Though not explicitly laid out in that communication, it suggests they might be planning on giving Sen. Sullivan an “incumbent” label, which may very well draw its own legal challenge.
Still, as for the apparent confusion, it should be noted that Alaska voters successfully wrote in “Murkowski” in 2010.
The Republican furor over Petersburg Dan Sullivan shouldn’t overlook the larger context of the race: That Sullivan isn’t doing too hot.
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 healthcare, infrastructure development or general affordability. Sullivan has been a cheerleader of Trump’s costly and interminable war with Iran, which has driven energy prices soaring, and his refusal to immediately condemn Trump’s legal payout fund, only waiting until it was dead to speak out against it, hasn’t sat well with Alaskans, either.
Polling consistently has suggested he could be in trouble in a head-to-head race with Peltola, so even a few percentage points could be the votes that matter.
In the latest Alaska Survey Research poll, Peltola had 49.4%, and Sullivan had 44.2%. Interestingly enough, longtime perennial candidate Dustin Darden — a guy who has run under the Republican, Democratic and now-defunct Alaskan Independence parties over just the last three election cycles, but has not drawn similar accusations of running for underhanded reasons — is polling at 2.7%.
For his part, Petersburg Sullivan said he wanted to bring attention to Sen. Sullivan’s notorious aversion to meeting with potentially critical groups and the impacts his decisions have had on the state.
“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,” Petersburg said in one response to the state’s questions. “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. Senator Sullivan and NRSC have no right to exclude me from the ballot simply because we happen to share a name.”
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.
