Two Dan Sullivans, One Ballot: Coincidence or Recruitment?

Two Dan Sullivans, one Senate seat

When Alaskans fill out their U.S. Senate ballot on Nov. 3, they will see the name Sullivan twice. One is the two-term incumbent, Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. The other is Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher from Petersburg who goes by Dan.

It is the only congressional race in the country this year where two candidates share a last name, according to Ballotpedia. And on Oct. 22, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the Alaska Division of Elections, asking a federal court to block certification of the result if the incumbent loses, citing possible voter confusion between the two men.

Then, on Oct. 28, The New York Times reported that the second Sullivan was not a coincidence. Citing interviews, text messages and documents, the Times reported that members of Peltola’s campaign, her lawyers and aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) helped push him into the race, in what was called a “ballot composition” project (ABC News). Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC deny it.

That changes the question this article set out to answer. The pure-chance odds of two candidates with the same name in one race are small, and the Times’ reporting says chance was never the mechanism. What remains open is whether recruiting a namesake is illegal, whether it confused any voter, and whether either question can stop the count.

How the second Sullivan got on the ballot

The challenger filed in late May and was removed in June, then restored by two courts within four days. The sequence:

Date	What happened
Late May 2026	Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a former U.S. Forest Service worker, files for U.S. Senate as a registered Republican (KDH News/ADN).
June 15	Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher disqualifies him, finding the filing was not made in good faith. Complaints came from the Alaska Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
June 26	Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews reverses, finding the confusion claim was not supported by a preponderance of the evidence (Alaska Beacon).
June 29	The Alaska Supreme Court affirms three hours after oral argument and sends ballot design back to the Division. Fourteen Republican-led states had filed a brief supporting removal. The full opinion has not been issued (ADN).
Aug. 18	Top-four primary. Dan J. Sullivan finishes third with 2.47% and advances (Decision Desk HQ).
Oct. 22	DOJ files suit in U.S. District Court in Alaska to block certification pending an investigation into confusion (CNN).
Oct. 26	U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason fast-tracks motions to dismiss from the state, Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC.
Oct. 28	The New York Times reports Peltola campaign members, her lawyers and DSCC aides helped recruit the challenger. Both deny it.

The state’s case for removal rested on more than the shared name. According to CBS News, Beecher pointed out that the challenger first asked to appear on the ballot as “Dan Sullivan,” the same format the senator uses. A state attorney told the Supreme Court that when asked how he wanted to be identified, the challenger wrote “Dan S. Sullivan” the incumbent’s middle initial (KTOO).

Sen. Sullivan has called the challenger a sham candidate recruited to help Democrat Mary Peltola. The challenger has said he is running out of dissatisfaction with the senator and has no tie to Peltola or the Democratic Party; in June he said he had “zero, none, zilch” contact with her campaign (AP via PBS). He told The New York Times he registered as a Republican because the Alaska Independence Party, his previous party, no longer exists (NBC News).

What the New York Times reported

The Times reported on Oct. 28 that the challenger’s candidacy grew out of a Democratic search for Dan Sullivans that began in 2025. The account below draws on how ABC News, the Associated Press, Alaska Public Media, KTUU and Newsweek reported the Times’ findings.

The list. In 2025, Democratic aides were asked to compile a list of Dan Sullivans living in Alaska, including the eventual challenger, according to Newsweek’s account of the Times story. Alaska Public Media summarized it as aides telling a Peltola staffer to find as many Dan Sullivans in Alaska as possible.
Who was involved. The Times named members of Peltola’s campaign, Peltola’s lawyers and senior DSCC aides, according to ABC News. AP reported that DSCC staffers were on text threads with the campaign.
The challenger. Per Newsweek’s account, the Times reported that Dan J. Sullivan is “not a fan” of President Trump and had indicated interest in running to help Peltola.
The sourcing. ABC reported the story drew on 12 sources plus texts and documents; Newsweek said some documents were prepared for a potential lawsuit. A key source was Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, who was fired in August. She told the Times Peltola was “definitely aware” of the project but not directly involved (KTUU). She later asked to withdraw, writing, “I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity” (Native News Online). The Times published anyway.

Responses to the report:

Who	What they said
Peltola campaign (Alaskans for Mary)	Has “no involvement with either Sullivan campaign and did not recruit any candidates into the race” (Newsweek). Alaska Public Media notes the committee filed its organizing statement in January 2026, after much of what the Times describes.
DSCC	“The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan.” It said Republicans have a long history of propping up candidates, citing GOP support in 2024 for a federal inmate who ran against Peltola (ABC).
Dan J. Sullivan	Did not respond to AP, KTUU or KFSK after the report.
Sen. Sullivan’s campaign	Spokesman Nate Adams: Peltola’s campaign has “spent months gaslighting Alaskans, denying a scheme they were running all along” (Newsweek).
Sen. Lisa Murkowski	“Alaskans deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign” (Alaska Public Media).
President Trump	“I think they should be prosecuted” (AP via PBS).

ABC News has reported that the Justice Department has had an active criminal investigation into the circumstances of the candidacy for several months. No charges have been filed.

So what are the odds?

By pure chance, roughly 1 in 19,000 that someone in a 16-candidate field shares the incumbent’s first and last name. If the Times’ account holds, chance had nothing to do with it. Shared last names alone are far more common: Ballotpedia counts 331 such races this November.

Shared surnames: hundreds of races a year

Ballotpedia found 668 candidates in 331 races across 28 states who share a last name with an opponent on the Nov. 3 ballot. That is up from 206 races in 2024 and 215 in 2025. Of the 331, one is a congressional race (Alaska), 13 are state contests and 317 are local. Most (256) are nonpartisan.

Nebraska leads with 61 such races, followed by Kentucky (54), Indiana (47) and Michigan (40). Smith and Johnson are the most common shared surnames, at nine races each. In Nevada’s governor’s race, Attorney General Aaron Ford shares a surname with independent Danielle Ford. The Detroit school board race has four pairs of shared surnames among 31 candidates.

In simple terms: two candidates named Smith in a county race is ordinary. Two candidates with the same first and last name, in a U.S. Senate race, is not.

Shared full names: the arithmetic

Name-frequency site NameCensus, which combines Social Security Administration first-name records with the Census Bureau’s 2020 surname file, estimates about 1,190 living Americans are named Daniel Sullivan, or about 1 in 288,029 people.

From that figure, NexfinityNews worked out two rough probabilities:

Daniel Sullivans in Alaska. Applied to Alaska’s 2020 Census population of 733,391, the national rate implies two or three Daniel Sullivans in the entire state.
A namesake in the race by chance. With 15 other candidates in the Senate primary field, the chance that any one of them happened to be named Daniel Sullivan is about 15 in 288,029, or roughly 1 in 19,000.

Those figures carry a real caveat. The estimate assumes first and last names are independent, and they are not: families of a given heritage tend to favor certain first names, and Daniel is a traditional name in many Irish-American families. The true count is probably higher than 1,190, though the order of magnitude holds.

The bigger caveat is that candidates are not drawn at random. People choose to run, and others can choose for them. According to the Times’ reporting, this race started not with a coincidence but with a list of every Dan Sullivan in Alaska. If that account holds, the 1-in-19,000 figure does not describe how the second Sullivan got on the ballot. It describes how unlikely it would have been if no one had gone looking.

What the law says about same-name candidates

A shared name is not a legal reason to keep someone off the ballot; election offices are expected to distinguish candidates on the ballot instead. The fight in Alaska was over a narrower question: whether the candidacy itself was filed in bad faith.

The federal floor. For congressional races, the U.S. Supreme Court held in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (1995) that states cannot add qualifications beyond those in the Constitution. A legal memo highlighted by the Anchorage Daily News concluded that a congressional candidate cannot be excluded merely for sharing a name with another candidate. A post on Election Law Blog argued the other side of the line: states may still exclude candidates who are not bona fide, and doing so is not an added qualification.

Ballot design is the usual remedy. States handle namesakes by printing more information:

Alaska regulations call for middle initials to tell same-name candidates apart (ADN).
Massachusetts law requires given names and voter-list addresses when two candidates for governor or lieutenant governor share a surname (M.G.L. c. 54, §41A).

What Alaska printed. On the general election ballot, the two men appear as “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent” and “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.” with no party listed for the challenger, even though he is a registered Republican (Alaska Beacon). The challenger’s lawyers had argued that Alaska law entitles him to have his party preference listed. The state had asked the Supreme Court for permission to list him as “nonpartisan.”

In simple terms: the courts decided who gets on the ballot, and the election office decided how they look on it. The challenger got his spot on the ballot, but not the party label he asked for.

Is recruiting a namesake illegal? On its own, apparently not. The Times reported that ballot-stacking tactics are common and widely considered legal (ABC). Libby Bakalar, a former state attorney who represented the Division of Elections, said, “Not a single illegal thing happened here,” arguing that open ballot access lets anyone recruit candidates (Alaska Public Media). Derek Muller of Notre Dame called it “a dirty campaign trick” and said “now it’s in the hands of the voters, not litigation” (AP).

The legal exposure, if any, lies in the money and the coordination. RNC spokesman Nick Poche said a super PAC working in tandem with the Peltola campaign would be a federal campaign finance violation. No such charge has been filed, and no court has found coordination. Alaska’s courts ruled on the June record; the texts and documents the Times describes were not part of it.

When a namesake did change the result

The clearest U.S. case is Florida’s 2020 state Senate District 37 race, decided by 32 votes, where a paid spoiler with the incumbent’s surname drew more than 6,000.

Florida, 2020. Republican Ileana Garcia defeated Democratic incumbent José Javier Rodríguez by 32 votes out of about 215,000 cast. A no-party candidate, auto parts dealer Alexis “Alex” Rodriguez, received more than 6,000 votes without campaigning (NBC Miami). Prosecutors said former state Sen. Frank Artiles paid him about $45,000 to run.

Running a so-called ghost candidate was not itself a crime in Florida; paying one with illegal contributions was (NPR). Alex Rodriguez pleaded guilty in 2021. Artiles was convicted in 2024 of making excessive contributions, conspiracy and false swearing, was sentenced to 60 days in jail plus probation, and appealed (NBC Miami). The result of the election stood.

The Alaska allegation so far tracks the first half of the Florida case: recruitment is alleged, but no illegal payment has been alleged in court.

The tactic is not new to Alaska. Alaska Public Media reported that super PACs spent more than $2 million this summer trying to lift political unknowns onto Alaska’s general election ballots. In the U.S. House race, Republican groups have spent to support Eric Hafner, a federal prisoner in New York who is the only Democrat to advance. The DSCC pointed to that record in its response. What sets the Senate case apart, Republicans argue, is the shared name and the risk it confuses voters.

Did voters get confused?

The primary offers the only hard evidence so far, and it points to little confusion: the challenger drew 4,107 votes, 2.47% of 166,004, largely from left-leaning districts.

The August primary. Certified results from Decision Desk HQ show Peltola at 49.54% (82,244), Sen. Sullivan at 41.40% (68,726) and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. at 2.47% (4,107). A review by the Anchorage Press found a large share of the challenger’s votes came from left-leaning districts a pattern that fits Democratic-leaning voters choosing him on purpose better than Republicans picking the wrong Sullivan (Alaska Beacon). The challenger told public radio station KFSK the result showed very little, if any, confusion.

The Times’ report fits that pattern: a candidate recruited to draw votes from the senator would be expected to draw them from voters who dislike the senator. But recruitment and confusion are separate questions. Evidence that Democrats wanted a second Sullivan on the ballot is not evidence that any voter picked the wrong one. Legal experts told AP the report will not affect the DOJ lawsuit, which rests on confusion.

The general election is ranked-choice. That changes the math on confusion. Fourth-place finisher David Leslie withdrew, which moved Republican Gerald Heikes onto the November ballot. With four candidates, the last-place finisher is eliminated and those ballots move to each voter’s next choice, round by round. There is no separate runoff election: the rankings voters mark on Nov. 3 are the runoff.

Because Peltola and Sen. Sullivan are expected to be the final two, a voter who ranks Dan J. Sullivan first and Dan S. Sullivan second ends up counting for the senator. In simple terms: a confused voter loses nothing as long as they rank both Sullivans.

The ceiling on damage. That points to a measurable limit. The only ballots confusion could cost the senator are those that rank Dan J. Sullivan and never rank Dan S. Sullivan at all. That number will be visible in Alaska’s round-by-round tabulation, scheduled for Nov. 18. Election-night results show first choices only; the Division of Elections runs a single ranked-choice tabulation after absentee ballots are in, and targets certification for Nov. 25 (Alaska Public Media). Nov. 25 is also the step the DOJ lawsuit seeks to block. If that count is smaller than the final margin, confusion cannot have decided the race, whatever its cause. This is NexfinityNews analysis, not a claim made by either side.

The lawsuit. The DOJ complaint calls the challenger’s candidacy frivolous and intended only to benefit Peltola, and asks the court to block certification if the senator loses by fewer votes than the challenger receives, pending an investigation. It relies on the preamble of the National Voter Registration Act, which refers to protecting the integrity of the electoral process (Alaska Beacon). President Trump said he ordered the suit. It does not name the challenger as a defendant.

Notre Dame election law professor Derek Muller called it among the worst legal arguments he had ever seen. A person affiliated with Sen. Sullivan’s campaign said the senator did not ask for the suit; campaign spokesman Nate Adams said the campaign would let it run its course. Peltola’s campaign signaled it may intervene. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, who noted the suit was filed “after Alaskans had already begun casting their ballots” (ABC News). On Oct. 26 she fast-tracked motions to dismiss from elections director Carol Beecher and from Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC; the League of Women Voters of Alaska also sought to join (Democracy Docket). The state argues that “the United States has no legal authority over how candidates secure their place on the ballot in state elections” (Newsweek). Beecher asked for a ruling by Nov. 2; Alaska Public Media reported one could come as soon as Oct. 30. The Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up (CNBC).

Analysis: the odds were never the question

The Times’ report reopens the question of intent, but not in a courtroom. Alaska’s courts ruled in June that the state had not proven bad faith; the reporting now alleges organized recruitment, which the accused deny and which experts say is not illegal on its own.

That distinction matters because each side is arguing a different question:

Question	Who is asking it	What the record shows so far
Was the candidacy recruited?	Sen. Sullivan, Republicans, DOJ	The Division found bad faith in June; two courts found that evidence insufficient. On Oct. 28 the Times reported Peltola campaign members, her lawyers and DSCC aides helped recruit him. Both deny it, and a key named source asked to withdraw.
Was it illegal?	RNC, President Trump	Recruitment alone is widely considered legal. In Florida, the crime was illegal funding. The RNC says super PAC coordination would violate federal law; no charge has been filed. ABC reports a DOJ criminal investigation is open.
Can voters tell them apart?	DOJ	The ballot lists middle initials, “Jr.,” incumbency and party for one candidate only. The primary drew 2.47% for the challenger, concentrated in left-leaning districts.
Could confusion change the winner?	DOJ, both campaigns	Under ranked-choice voting, only ballots that rank Dan J. and omit Dan S. can cost the senator. That count will be public Nov. 18.

None of the new reporting answers the last question. Recruitment, if proven, describes the intent of the people who put him on the ballot, not the choices of the voters who mark it. The DOJ suit rests on confusion, and whether confusion mattered still depends on a count that will not exist until Nov. 18.

Conclusion

The chance of two people with the same full name turning up in one Senate race is, by any arithmetic, small. The Times now reports it was never left to chance. American ballots handle namesakes every cycle 331 races this year by surname alone and the standard tool is a middle initial, not a court order.

What makes Alaska different is the stakes. It has a toss-up seat and a recruitment allegation the accused deny and a key source tried to withdraw. It also has a federal lawsuit and a reported criminal investigation, all landing with voting underway. Early voting began Oct. 19, and AP counted 46,204 ballots cast by Oct. 26.

Voters will weigh the recruitment allegation themselves. The ranked-choice tally on Nov. 18 will answer the narrower question the DOJ put to the court: whether the second Dan Sullivan cost the first one anything.

Key takeaways

A New York Times report says it was not a coincidence. Citing interviews, texts and documents, the Times reported Oct. 28 that Peltola campaign members, her lawyers and DSCC aides helped recruit the second Sullivan, starting from a 2025 list of Dan Sullivans in Alaska. The Peltola campaign and the DSCC deny it.
Shared surnames are routine; shared full names in federal races are rare. Ballotpedia counts 331 races with shared last names on the Nov. 3 ballot; Alaska’s Senate race is the only congressional one. The pure-chance odds of a namesake in a 16-candidate field are about 1 in 19,000.
Recruiting a namesake is not illegal on its own. Experts say the tactic is legal; legal exposure turns on funding and coordination. No charge has been filed, though ABC reports a DOJ criminal investigation is open.
Recruitment is not confusion. Proof that Democrats wanted the challenger on the ballot is not proof that voters picked the wrong Sullivan. The DOJ suit rests on confusion.
Confusion has a measurable ceiling. Under ranked-choice voting, only ballots that rank Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and never rank Dan S. Sullivan can cost the senator a vote. That count will be public Nov. 18.
Precedent exists for namesakes deciding races. Florida’s 2020 SD37 race was decided by 32 votes with a paid same-surname spoiler drawing more than 6,000.