Ordinarily, the dark horse Senate campaign of an elusive, retired teacher in a tiny Alaskan fishing village would barely register for Senator Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent running for re-election with President Trump’s support and a $7 million war chest.
But that dark horse’s name is also Dan Sullivan.
National Republicans, including the sitting senator, were enraged when Mr. Sullivan announced in late May that he would run for the Senate as a member of their party. They accused him of being a Democratic plant to confuse voters and siphon support from their chosen candidate, who faces a tough challenge from former Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat.
In a state with roughly 600,000 registered voters, even a small number of Republicans accidentally voting for the other Mr. Sullivan could hand a close race to Ms. Peltola.
On Tuesday, despite Republicans’ best legal efforts, both Mr. Sullivans will appear on the primary ballot — alongside Ms. Peltola and about a dozen other less well-known candidates — in a high-profile Senate race that Democrats say they must win to take control of the Senate. Because of Alaska’s primary rules, the top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the general election in November.
The more obscure Mr. Sullivan has denied any subterfuge. But he has added to the mystery by saying little — and doing very little campaigning.
So as I prepared this month to fly from San Francisco to Seattle to Juneau to the small island that is home to Petersburg, I didn’t expect him to respond. In fact, he picked me up at the airport.
A noble bid or political ‘sabotage’
I had reached out just before my trip to let Mr. Sullivan know I’d be in town. To my surprise, he replied promptly, offering me and the photographer a ride. He also advised me to sit on the right side of the plane on my final leg from Juneau for optimal views of Alaska’s stunning nature.
Mr. Sullivan met us at the island’s tiny airport, wearing a gray T-shirt and tan shorts, and drove us to a nearby park. He said his previous reluctance to engage had been a product of feeling overwhelmed by the legal proceedings and the national attention.
Picturesque Petersburg, nestled about 160 miles southeast of Juneau on an island between the snow-capped peaks of mainland Alaska and the towering mountains of the Tongass National Forest, is so remote that only a few ferries stop here each week. Its population is 3,394.
We sat on a log facing Frederick Sound, our interview briefly interrupted when several humpback whales surfaced dramatically. The spot, he informed me, was a former garbage dump, which explained the hazardous chunks of glass littering the rocky beach.
Talking to Mr. Sullivan and reporting in Petersburg, I did not find case-closing evidence of either a Democratic plot or a fully independent campaign without ulterior motives. But I did learn a few things about his politics:
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He told me he has never voted for President Trump. He voted for the Democratic nominee in the last three presidential elections.
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He said he voted for Ms. Peltola in her bids for the House in 2022 and 2024. He did not vote for Senator Sullivan in his previous two Senate campaigns.
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He is politically active, attending local events protesting the Trump administration, including at least one “No Kings” protest.
Nonetheless, Mr. Sullivan, who at 69 is eight years older than the incumbent Mr. Sullivan, maintained that he was running in good faith and of his own volition, as a moderate Republican and not a secret Democrat. He said he’d voted for some Alaska Republicans, like Senator Lisa Murkowski.
“I don’t think the Republican Party needs to be the MAGA party,” he said. “My dad and my grandfather were Republicans who taught me my work skills, my skills to be a good father and a husband and how to be a kind human being.” (They were both also named Dan Sullivan.)
It had been a long-running local joke that Mr. Sullivan should challenge the sitting senator. Aside from the punchline, it made some sense: Mr. Sullivan was unimpressed with the senator’s leadership. He was particularly angered by his support for Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees and cuts to the federal work force, and believed he had done little to lower Alaska’s soaring cost of living.
He decided to run, betting his name would offer him “an instant megaphone.”
Mr. Sullivan grew up in Chicago but has lived in Petersburg for 46 years, serving as a volunteer firefighter and arts council president in addition to teaching fifth graders. He is actually the third Dan Sullivan to run for Senate in Alaska in the past decade. Another, a former mayor of Anchorage, launched a brief bid for Alaska’s other Senate seat in 2016; his early departure from the race averted the prospect of sending two Dan Sullivans from Alaska to the Senate.
Many Petersburg residents, in between sharing stories of catching the halibut, salmon and crab that power the region’s economy, were eager to offer their opinions on Mr. Sullivan.
Some said it was his right to run, and those who skewed liberal tended to view his bid as a noble, if futile, effort. Chelsea Tremblay, a Democrat who works at the local bookstore, said she didn’t believe he was trying to aid Democrats or mislead voters. And she thought the furious response from Republicans had made him more determined to see his bid through.
Shopping at the hardware store, Bonnie Bennett, a bartender, said she’d likely vote for Ms. Peltola. But she thought Mr. Sullivan’s run was legitimate. Asked about the possibility of him playing spoiler and aiding Ms. Peltola, Ms. Bennett liked the idea.
“Great,” she said. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I don’t play chess games with life.”
Republicans saw Mr. Sullivan’s campaign differently.
Anthony Vinson said it was clear that Mr. Sullivan was trying to “sabotage” the senator. Mr. Vinson said he had reason to believe Mr. Sullivan was more liberal than he appeared: In 2023, Mr. Sullivan wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, complaining about Mr. Vinson’s run for local office and noting that Mr. Vinson years earlier had displayed a sign outside his house that Mr. Sullivan objected to.
Mr. Vinson said the sign had disparaged former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. with a profane, two-word slogan that was common during his presidency. (Mr. Sullivan wrote that he was taking issue with the use of foul language near a school, not the political statement.)
Mark Jensen, who served as Petersburg’s mayor for 14 years and supports the incumbent senator, said he’d never known the local Mr. Sullivan as anything other than a liberal. But given Mr. Sullivan’s denials, he was reluctant to accuse him of meddling.
One very prominent Republican had no such reservations.
On Friday, Mr. Trump exhorted Alaska Republicans to vote for the incumbent, posting a graphic on social media differentiating the senator with a gold “Trump endorsed” sticker. The other Mr. Sullivan’s name was crossed out and next to a Democratic donkey.
“The Crooked, Radical Left Dumocrats have put up another man named ‘Dan Sullivan,’ and they did this to take Votes away from our Great Senator of the same name,” Mr. Trump wrote.
I ‘am’ Dan Sullivan.
Republicans have been trying to derail Mr. Sullivan’s campaign from the start. They said his campaign website bore similarities to the senator’s. They noted that he filed as “Dan S. Sullivan,” using the senator’s middle initial instead of his own (J). He registered as a Republican on the same day he filed to be a candidate. And a longtime Democratic consultant, Amber Lee, helped him file to run, according to metadata from a filing document.
Mr. Sullivan, the senator, told reporters in Washington in June that the other Sullivan was “purposely trying to trick my constituents to rig the election for Peltola.”
“That’s an insult,” he said, adding an expletive.
The Alaska Division of Elections, overseen by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, a Republican, led the charge to kick Mr. Sullivan off the ballot. When that failed, the agency decided that ballots would list the senator as “Sullivan, Dan S.” — and call him a Republican incumbent — while describing the challenger as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.,” with no party affiliation.
Mr. Sullivan of Petersburg said in our interview that the middle initial controversy stemmed from a “typo.” He joined the Republican Party only recently, he said, because the Alaska Independence Party, his prior affiliation, dissolved last year. He has not committed to caucusing with either party if he is elected.
“My intention is not to trick people,” he said. “I would hope people are informed enough to know the difference between an incumbent senator and a teacher.”
Mr. Sullivan acknowledged previous donations to Ms. Peltola and a handful of other Democrats. He previously supported Ms. Peltola because he viewed her as “fairly pragmatic” and trying to help Alaska, he said.
Would he prefer Ms. Peltola over the incumbent in November? “If it was between those two, it’d probably be that.”
He wouldn’t say much about his relationship with Ms. Lee, the Democratic operative who helped him file for office. He said he found her by searching online. He also said she was no longer involved in his campaign.
“I’m not wanting to chat about that, just because of the stuff that’s going on,” he said. Pressed further, he suggested that his reluctance had to do with federal investigations into his candidacy, first reported by NBC News.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Alaska has been investigating Mr. Sullivan, according to a person familiar with the inquiry, examining whether his candidacy deprives Alaska residents of their right to vote — and whether his attempts to raise funds amount to fraud.
“I’m just a guy, and they’re scary,” he said of investigators. “Whether you’ve done something right or wrong, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”
Ms. Lee did not respond to a request for comment. Democrats, including Ms. Peltola’s campaign, have denied any connection with Mr. Sullivan.
Campaign finance records show 12 donors to his campaign, aside from himself, of up to $1,000 a person. Most of his donors appear to be Petersburg residents who are unaffiliated or undeclared politically. One is a Democrat.
After the waterside interview, Mr. Sullivan drove us to his house overlooking a nearby bay. We met his wife, Karen, a retired U.S. Forest Service ecologist, who showed us her edible mushrooms and the bright clothing she’d dyed with a mushroom concoction.
I looked around for evidence of his political leanings. He displayed a large American flag on his balcony, but I spotted another object of note: a refrigerator magnet featuring Che Guevara, the Marxist revolutionary. Mr. Sullivan said he didn’t realize the magnet was there until I asked about it, and said perhaps his children had put it there.
Before dropping us off, Mr. Sullivan acknowledged the many names that allies of the incumbent senator have called him: a “sham” candidate, “Decoy Dan,” “Fraud Sullivan.” One of those names in particular had gotten under his skin: “Fake Dan Sullivan.”
“I am not a ‘fake’ Dan Sullivan. I am Dan Sullivan,” he said, and, seeming to address the senator directly, added: “I’ve been Dan Sullivan longer than you’ve been Dan Sullivan.”
Kirsten Noyes and Alan Feuer contributed.
