In search of the real Dan Sullivan

Thank God! This has been such a boring campaign season. Nobody arrested, no candidates breaking down in tears, no known Russian interference. We needed a real scandal to shake it up.

And now we’ve finally got one! Well, not a big scandal — just a teeny-weeny scandal. But it’s just enough to make this last week more colorful. And more than enough to drive President Trump crazy. Of course, I’m talking about Alaska’s Dan Sullivans. Both of them.

It all started on Aug. 18, when 16 candidates appeared on Alaska’s non-partisan Senate primary ballot, including incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, running for reelection, and former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. Under Alaska’s “ranked-choice voting” rules, the top four candidates advanced to the Nov. 3 general election ballot.

When votes were counted , Peltola came in first, winning by 8 points. Sen. Sullivan came in second. Third and fourth place went to two other Republicans: Gerald L. Heikes and yet another Dan Sullivan: Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr., a retired schoolteacher.

Senator Sullivan’s campaign immediately cried “foul,” accusing Peltola staffers of recruiting schoolteacher Sullivan to run, only to confuse voters. The Peltola campaign denied any involvement. Daniel J. Sullivan insisted he decided to file on his own and, in response to a lawsuit filed by Sen. Sullivan, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the “other” Sullivan had every right to run.

That kind of settled things until last week, when the New York Times dropped a bombshell . Its dogged investigative reporters exposed a plot by the Peltola campaign to hunt down anyone named “Dan Sullivan” and convince him to run against Sen. Sullivan — yes, only in order to confuse voters. The Peltola campaign and Daniel J. Sullivan himself had been lying.

That’s when the stuff hit the fan. The Republican governor of Alaska launched an investigation . Trump called on Peltola to drop out of the race. And, on Trump’s orders, the Justice Department filed an unusual lawsuit demanding that Alaska invalidate results of the Nov. 3 Senate election — but only if Senator Sullivan lost. That “Hail Mary” pass also failed this past weekend, when a federal judge dismissed DOJ’s case as unenforceable.

At least for now, that marks the end of the “big, beautiful,” Alaska Senate scandal — which, in the end, proved to be not such a big deal, after all. Much ado about nothing.

To start with, recruiting someone with the same name as your opponent to run for the same office in order to confuse voters may be a political dirty trick. But it’s not illegal. It’s wrong. But, if anything else, it’s stupid, not illegal. Because you might get caught and embarrassed, like the Peltola campaign has been.

Nor is this the first time it’s been tried. It’s an old trick used by both Democratic and Republican politicians. Most recently, in 2024, Washington state’s Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson ran for governor. He was challenged on the ballot by not one, but two other Bob Fergusons — both Democrats and both recruited by his Republican opponent in order to confuse voters. The scheme failed.

In fact, in my research, I could not find one case of a “same-name” lesser candidate winning or changing the outcome of any election. It won’t happen in Alaska, either, because the Alaskan people are smarter than that.

It may be cold up there. Alaskans may be busy with jobs and family. But they can still read and write. Looking at the official senate ballot, they can easily tell the difference between Sen. Sullivan — listed as “Dan S. Sullivan, incumbent, Republican” and retired schoolteacher Dan Sullivan — identified only as “Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.” — with no given political party or occupation. There’s no doubt which is which, and Alaskans know it. No matter what President Trump says, if Senator Sullivan loses to Peltola, he can’t blame it on the other, unknown Dan Sullivan.

You must also admit, it’s rich to hear Trump complain about any effort to “confuse voters.” This is man who still claims he won more popular votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016, who still refuses to admit he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and who filed 62 lawsuits alleging voter fraud in 2020, nearly all of which were dismissed for lack of evidence.

When it comes to confusing voters, Trump is the master, not Daniel J. Sullivan of Petersburg, Alaska.