Alaska Republicans scramble to educate voters on suspected Dem plant as 'ballot fatigue' threatens race

In addition to fending off a Democratic challenger, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, is wrestling against confusion caused by a candidate who shares his name — Dan J. Sullivan Jr., an independent — and a shrinking window to clear it up.

Alaska state Sen. James Kaufman, a Republican, said he personally remains worried about conflation between the two.

"I’ve had at least one person say they had to slow down to make sure they didn’t make a mistake. And I can only imagine people who are less engaged in politics — I think it can be confusing," Kaufman said.

Results on Tuesday seem to confirm his hunch.

Sullivan Jr.’s campaign, which has focused on his background as a logger, has meaningfully splintered support from the incumbent Republican candidate in the primary — but not enough to create ambiguity about who the frontrunner was in the primary. Now, the question becomes whether the Sullivan look-alike will have a proportional impact in November, given Alaska’s ranked choice voting system, a larger pool of voters and more time for Republicans to warn voters about the dueling Sullivans.

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Former congresswoman Mary Peltola convincingly led the field on Tuesday, beating out Sen. Sullivan by a 5.4% lead.

Notably, the votes that went to Sullivan Jr. wouldn’t have closed the gap entirely had they been cast for the senator, having received just 2.3%.

Even so, Randy Ruedrich, former Republican Party chairman from 2000-2013, believes the confusion is evident.

As an Alaska resident, he pointed out that Alaska’s lone congressman, Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, had received as much support in his own primary as the top non-Democrats vying for the Senate seat: Sen. Sullivan, Sullivan Jr. and Gerald Heikes, a veteran.

"Nick Begich, without all this entertainment, has 60,061 votes. Nick Begich has slightly less Republican votes than these three Republicans together," Ruedrich said.

"There is some obvious crossover."

Ruedrich noted that Alaska has grappled with voter name confusion before. He recalled that, in 2022, little-known Buzz Kelly advanced to a general election when enough voters confused him with Republican Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka. Tshibaka had been campaigning using just her first name, effectively creating two "Kelly" candidates.

"We had a lady running who was using her first name to identify herself because her last name is a nightmare," Ruedrich recalled. "We’ve had identity issues and confusion in the past."

Ruedrich believes that attempts to muddy the waters also go beyond just Sullivan Jr.’s campaign. He pointed out that this year looks different for Heikes — the Republican with the third-most support on Tuesday and a familiar face in Alaska politics.

"Now, why am I bringing up Heikes? He is a perennial candidate. He has run a number of times, but he's always been unfunded," Ruedrich said.

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"This year, he has a significant contribution of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Massachusetts liberal who is contributing to this ultra-conservative Republican, and they're running ads saying that Dan Sullivan is not pro-life; he's pro-abortion."

Heikes has backing from groups like Right for Alaska, which has put roughly $1.2 million up to oppose Sen. Sullivan and $410,000 to support Heikes.

It remains unclear if Heikes will advance to the general election as election results remain unfinalized.

One notable difference between Alaska’s top-four jungle primary and its general election is the implementation of ranked-choice voting in November.

Under this system, voters rank their preferred candidates. If their top choice is eliminated, their support passes on to their next-ranked option. While supporters of the process argue it expands voters' power and greatly increases the influence of candidates that may not otherwise be a top choice, critics believe it also introduces confusion.

Kaufman fears that some voters won’t bother to fill out both the "Sullivans" on the ballot to cover their bases.

He believes there are still some voters in Alaska, especially Republicans, who refuse to use the system, citing disagreements with its implementation.

"Some people have a pretty strong traditionalist perspective: one person, one man, one vote," Kaufman said.

"And so, the ballot fatigue where people just don’t rank because maybe they disagree with it; there’s a pretty strong segment of the population here that just patently disagrees with the rank-choice voting system we ended up with. And they don’t necessarily believe in utilizing it."

Both Kaufman and Ruedrich remain unclear about how much confusion the Sullivan Jr. campaign will add in November, but noted that Republicans will likely make it a focus to highlight the issue in the remaining months of the campaign.

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"It has had some blog coverage and some social media coverage," Ruedrich said.

"I expect that’s going to go up significantly to get more people to understand what the problem really is," he added.

In terms of proportionality, Sullivan Jr.’s most notable support came from his hometown, Petersburg Kupreanof. There, he received 66 votes to Sen. Sullivan’s 213 votes — roughly 33% of the incumbent’s support.

Sullivan Jr.’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.