Dan S Sullivan, the Republican senator, will be joined on the November ballot in Alaska by a challenger with a nearly identical name from the same party, election officials confirmed on Tuesday, adding a twist to what is expected to be one of the most hotly contested races of the midterms.
The Republican senator is running for a third term against Democrat Mary Peltola, a former US House representative whom polls show is neck-and-neck with him in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008.
Alaska holds nonpartisan primaries in which the top four vote-getters advance to the general election. The Associated Press reported that with 85% of the ballots counted, Dan J Sullivan, a retired school teacher and US Forest Service employee running as a Republican, would appear on the ballot alongside incumbent Dan S Sullivan and Peltola, with a fourth candidate yet to be announced.
The other Sullivan entered the race earlier this year, with the incumbent senator condemning him as a “sham” candidate who is running at the behest of Democrats to confuse his supporters and split their votes.
In June, Alaska election officials disqualified the other Sullivan from the election, but the state supreme court ordered him restored. The two were listed next to each other among the 16 candidates on primary ballots, but the senator had “registered Republican” and “incumbent” next to his name, while his similarly named challenger was unadorned.
It’s unclear how much of a threat the other Sullivan may pose to the senator’s chances of winning re-election. His 2.5% of the vote is much less than the more than 48% received by Peltola and almost 43% senator Sullivan won in last week’s primary.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting for general elections for congressional offices, raising the possibility that residents who want to vote for the senator but are confused by the similar names can rank both, with their votes likely to wind up going to the incumbent.
In addition to Alaska, Democratic leaders are seeking to win Senate seats from Republicans in North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Iowa, all of which voted for Donald Trump in 2024. They also hope to pick up a seat in blue state Maine, while defending Democratic-held seats in Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire.
