Dan J. Sullivan says he had no contact with the campaign

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Democratic campaign for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat was involved in efforts to place on the ballot a candidate with the same name as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, in a bid to confuse voters in a race that could determine which party controls the chamber. The newspaper said it obtained text messages between members of Mary Peltola’s campaign discussing the recruitment of other people with the same name as the two-term Republican their candidate was running against. The group eventually landed on a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg named Dan J. Sullivan.

Dan J. Sullivan made it through the state’s August open primary and is one of four candidates on the ranked-vote ballot for the Nov. 3 general election. Sen. Sullivan is marked on the ballot as the Republican incumbent; the other Sullivan is listed as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. As of Monday, 46,204 ballots had already been cast in Alaska, according to AP data.

Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign. “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run. He did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday from The Associated Press.

The campaign for Peltola, a former congresswoman, did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment. Democrats, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have repeatedly denied that they were involved in any campaign trick. “The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan,” the organization said in a statement Wednesday. The Times report said DSCC staffers were on texts with the Peltola campaign discussing the second Sullivan.

A top state elections official ruled Dan J. Sullivan ineligible for the ballot after he declared his candidacy, claiming it was “filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.” The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. The U.S. Constitution sets out only age, citizenship and residency requirements to run for the Senate.

“Alaskans deserve the truth,” said Nate Adams, a spokesperson for Sen. Sullivan’s campaign. “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 Times story about the recruitment of Dan J. Sullivan is based partly on interviews with Peltola’s former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, who was fired in August amid a campaign shake-up. The newspaper said she tried to retract her comments last week.

Legal experts said the report about Democrats appearing to recruit Dan J. Sullivan as a way to potentially confuse voters will have no impact on a lawsuit filed recently by the U.S. Department of Justice. President Donald Trump directed the department to file a lawsuit seeking to halt certification of a possible Peltola win, citing the presence of the second Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

“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,” said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor. “But now it’s in the hands of the voters, not litigation.”

It’s not the first time a candidate’s appearance on the Alaska ballot has been questioned. In 2024, the state Democratic Party sued to keep off the U.S. House ballot a man with no apparent ties to the state who is serving time in a federal prison in New York. A divided state Supreme Court allowed him to remain on the ballot. The man is running again this year, also in the House race, and is on the Nov. 3 ranked-vote general election ballot.

Riccardi reported from Denver.