46,204 Ballots Already Cast as Second Dan Sullivan Stays on Alaska Senate Ticket

Wednesday that members of Democrat Mary Peltola's campaign discussed recruiting people who share the name of her Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan. The texts, obtained by the newspaper, show the conversations involved Peltola campaign staff and DSCC staffers. The effort eventually landed on Dan J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher in the fishing community of Petersburg.

Dan J. Sullivan advanced through Alaska's August open primary and appears on the ranked vote ballot for the general election next Tuesday. He is listed as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. Sen. Sullivan appears as the Republican incumbent. The other two candidates on the ballot are not named in the source material.

A top state elections official moved to strike Dan J. Sullivan from the ballot after he declared his candidacy, writing that the filing was "filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot's fairness or neutrality." The case reached the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he qualified to run, noting the U.S. Constitution sets only age, citizenship and residency requirements for Senate candidates.

Dan J. Sullivan has said he had no contact with Peltola's campaign. "Zero, none, zilch," he said in June after announcing his run. Peltola's campaign said in a statement Wednesday that it "has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign." The DSCC issued a similar denial: "The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan."

Nate Adams, a spokesperson for Sen. Sullivan's campaign, offered a different account. "Alaskans deserve the truth," Adams said. "Mary Peltola, her campaign and her senior advisers colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit candidates to deliberately confuse and deceive voters."

The New York Times report was based in part on interviews with Elisa Rios, Peltola's former campaign manager, who was fired in August during a campaign shake-up. The newspaper said she tried to retract her comments last week.

President Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice to file a lawsuit last week that pre-emptively contests a Peltola win, citing the presence of the second Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Trump wrote on his social media site Wednesday that "Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done." Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, said the recruitment report would not affect that lawsuit. "It's a dirty campaign trick, and it's good reason the Alaska Supreme Court should have permitted the candidate to have been removed from the ballot," Muller said. "But now it's in the hands of the voters, not litigation."

As of Monday, 46,204 ballots had been cast in Alaska. In 2024, the state Democratic Party sued to keep a man serving time in a federal prison in New York off the U.S. House ballot; a divided state Supreme Court allowed him to remain. He is running again this year in the House race and appears on the Nov. 3 ranked vote ballot.