Two Dan Sullivans are running in Alaska. Trump thinks one is a decoy

Something fishy is going on in Alaska ahead of the midterms, but it has nothing to do with the state's famous seafood and everything to do with two men with the same name.

Two Dan Sullivans are running for the US Senate on November 3.

One is Dan S Sullivan, Alaska's Republican incumbent who is seeking a third six-year term. The other is Dan J Sullivan Jr, a retired elementary-school teacher who entered the race in May.

When the two appear together on the ballot in print, Daniel J Sullivan is listed first, with no party designation, followed by Dan S Sullivan, registered Republican incumbent.

US President Donald Trump isn't too happy about it.

"They [the Democrats] found a guy named Dan Sullivan. They put him up to get [voters] a little confused," he said at a rally for the Alaskan incumbent in mid-October.

This week, he directed the Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race if Republicans do not win Alaska, believing Daniel J Sullivan is a "decoy" aimed at siphoning votes away from the Republican candidate.

Republicans argue voters intending to vote for Dan S Sullivan may confuse him with Dan J Sullivan and accidentally select his name on the ballot. Some Alaskans have dismissed the notion, arguing they are smarter than the Grand Old Party (GOP) gives them credit for.

The bizarre issue, which has been playing out for months, deepened on Wednesday, local time, when The New York Times reported the campaign of rival Democrat candidate in Alaska, Mary Peltola, had recruited Dan J Sullivan in an effort to dilute the GOP vote.

Both Ms Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) have denied participating in such efforts.

Dan J Sullivan has insisted he is running in good faith, saying his namesake is "making decisions that I don't think are necessarily moving our state forward". He has, however, acknowledged that having the same name as the incumbent has been a boon for his campaign.

"I knew that my name recognition would get me immediate publicity," he told The New Yorker in August.

"It's succeeded beyond my wildest hopes."

The Alaskan campaign has now kicked up a debate about ballot stacking tactics, widely-watched US Senate races and Republican allegations of election interference just days before the midterms.

A tale of two Dans

Back in May, the battle of the Dans came to a head when a top state elections official ruled Dan J Sullivan ineligible for the primary ballot.

The official concluded Dan J Sullivan's declaration of candidacy was filed "with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot's fairness or neutrality".

But the Alaska Supreme Court later overturned the decision, ruling he was qualified to run after finding the decision to strike him from the ballot was unlawful.

"It's all because of my name, and you know, there's nothing I can do about my name," Dan J Sullivan told a local news outlet after the decision.

"I was frustrated. I felt it's time for a change, and so I wanted to jump into the race and make my feelings and my thoughts known …They tried to make it more than that, and you know, that's their prerogative."

It isn't the first time a candidate has run against a namesake in the United States, nor is it the first time Dan S Sullivan has run against another of the same name.

When the Republican first ran for Senate in 2014, he appeared on the same ballot as Dan A Sullivan, the mayor of Anchorage, who had run for lieutenant governor.

But Republicans think the presence of Daniel J Sullivan, whom they refer to as "Decoy Dan" or "Fake Dan", on this year's ballot is a Democratic dirty trick.

That is despite Alaska's ranked-choice voting system making the situation "better for the Republican incumbent," according to David Smith, associate professor of American politics and foreign policy at the University of Sydney's US Studies Centre.

"If [someone] wanted to vote for Dan Sullivan but didn't know which one to vote for … as long as they put both of them above the Democrat [candidate], then Dan Sullivan is going to end up with the vote," he added.

"So it's really hard to see how this could unfairly change the election result at all."

Democrats accused of ballot stacking

Alaska is considered a high-stakes midterms race, and Ms Peltola, a Yup'ik Alaska Native and former congresswoman, hopes it will form part of next week's blue wave predicted by some pollsters.

If successful, she would become the first Democrat in nearly two decades to represent the state in the Senate.

"We've seen increasingly … that Democratic candidates seem to be competitive in states that went heavily for Trump in 2024. And Alaska is one of those states," Dr Smith said.

But Ms Peltola's campaign was rocked by The New York Times report suggesting that since the summer of 2025, her team had tried to recruit a Dan Sullivan to run for Senate.

Elisa Rios, Ms Peltola's former campaign manager and longtime aide, who was fired amid a staff shake-up in August, told the newspaper the DSCC had introduced the Peltola campaign to a political operative and Ohio native named Jerid Kurtz.

At a later meeting, this aide said he had recruited a Dan Sullivan who he described as "amenable to running if it would help Ms Peltola", the Times reported.

Dan J Sullivan and Ms Peltola did not respond to the ABC's requests for comment.

The tactic of selecting rival candidates with the same name to run, referred to as ballot-stacking, has, according to Dr Smith, been used by both parties in the past, and is generally considered legal.

Political parties may also seek candidates who appeal to a similar group of voters as the main rival, or stoke confusion to potentially influence the outcome of a close race.

Dr Smith said the tactic was used by Republicans during the 2024 campaign in Alaska when the GOP fought to keep another Democrat on the ballot who was actually in prison in New York at the time.

Steve Jarding, a former communications director for the DSCC, told top political website The Hill that ballot stacking was normal when he was at the Senate committee in Washington.

During a campaign stop in Soldotna on Friday, Ms Peltola labelled the Times report a "distraction".

"Mary got in this race because Alaskans deserve a champion who is fighting to lower their costs and put Alaska first, and no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight," her campaign said.

But that hasn't stopped Republicans from seizing on the issue.

Trump jumps on election interference allegations

With the case of the Alaskan Dans making national headlines days out from the midterms, Mr Trump and his attorney-general, Todd Blanche, have begun to ramp up allegations of election interference.

Mr Trump has called for Ms Peltola to be criminally prosecuted and removed from the ballot in the Senate race.

"I think they should be prosecuted. To me, that's voter fraud at the highest level," he told reporters.

The DOJ's lawsuit, filed on Thursday, said Alaska should be prevented from certifying the result if senator Dan Sullivan loses by fewer votes than his namesake receives, pending an investigation.

The probe would determine if voters mistakenly supported the wrong Sullivan, though it does not explain how this process would work. Votes are supposed to be confidential.

"I think name recognition [of] Senator Dan in Alaska is at 100 per cent," said Alaskan veteran political reporter James Brooks.

"As is name recognition for his leading Democratic challenger. People in Alaska have been inundated with ads, mailers, phone calls, and at this point it's difficult to find anyone who doesn't know what's happening."

Dr Smith doubted the DOJ lawsuit would proceed given states mostly run their own elections according to their own laws.

"Federal Congress can make laws regarding federal elections, but they haven't made any laws about this situation," he said.

"The fact that the federal government has said that this lawsuit will only apply if Dan Sullivan loses is another thing that makes it completely invalid. The federal government is not supposed to be a partisan entity; it's not supposed to be filing lawsuits on behalf of one candidate."

He believed Republicans were using this issue to sow seeds of doubt about the broader midterm elections.

"I think that they're definitely going to try to de-legitimise the election results," he said.

"The big question is going to be, will there actually be anything they can do about it?"

As for those seeking the Senate seat in Alaska, with so much resting on the outcome, winning this race will be nothing like shooting fish out of a barrel.