Alaska rules Dan Sullivan cannot run against Dan Sullivan in key Senate race

There will still be one Dan Sullivan on the ballot, but election officials in Alaska determined a second man by the same name cannot run against him in the high-stakes Senate race.

A man named Dan Sullivan, or Daniel J Sullivan Jr, filed to run as a Republican against incumbent Alaska senator Dan S Sullivan, also a Republican. Republicans filed complaints against the other Dan Sullivan, saying the candidate had coordinated with a Democratic campaign to confuse voters.

Alaska’s US Senate election is seen as competitive and is a key target for Democrats hoping to win back control of the upper chamber. Mary Peltola, a former Democratic congresswoman, is expected to face incumbent Sullivan in November.

The state has a non-partisan primary, set for 18 August. The top four vote-getters advance to the general election, which uses ranked-choice voting.

In a letter to Daniel J Sullivan on Monday, Alaska elections director Carol Beecher wrote that the “utterly unprecedented facts” in the case led her to conclude that Dan J Sullivan’s declaration of candidacy for US Senate “was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy for the office of United States senator, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality”.

A review of Sullivan’s candidacy raised a series of concerns, Beecher wrote: he did not typically use the nickname “Dan”; he had recently registered as a Republican; his campaign website looked like the other Dan Sullivan’s; and his campaign consultant was a longtime Democratic party supporter, including of Peltola.

“I conclude that the preponderance of the evidence is that you chose this new nickname and party affiliation because that name and party affiliation happen to be the name and party affiliation of another candidate in the race,” Beecher wrote.

Beecher is a Republican, and her office is overseen by Republican lieutenant governor Nancy Dahlstrom.

Dan J Sullivan, a former teacher, previously told the New York Times that election officials were seeking to “protect an incumbent senator from facing competition at the ballot box” and said he had not coordinated with Peltola. Peltola’s campaign has denied coordinating with Sullivan.