Update: Since this column started running, new damning facts, developed in a previously secret investigation by the New York Times, have come to light proving my point. We have to assume the Times wouldn’t be saying this if they didn’t believe it to be true. The NYT editorial board is the most anti-Trump in a major newspaper in America. They know how this will help Trump. The Times says the Democratic campaign aides to the Democratic Senate nominee in Alaska, along with others in the state, made an effort to recruit a hoax candidate with the same name as GOP incumbent Dan Sullivan to run as a independent for the purpose of confusing voters.
My column says this to previous Democratic denials: “Let’s cut to the chase: As we say in the Southland, that dog don’t hunt. The only reason the retired teacher from Petersburg is running as an independent is because he has the same name as the Republican incumbent. The man from Petersburg is making a mockery of our democratic election process.”
Now, we find out, his candidacy has been a hoax all along. According to the NYT, the top aides Democratic Senate nominee put the second Mr. Sullivan up to run in order to help defeat Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan. If this Times report is true, then the Democratic nominee should drop out of the race. If we want to keep our democratic election process, we can’t permit this to go on. This plays right into Donald Trump‘s hands and it couldn’t possibly have happened at the worst time in the 2026 cycle for Democrats. Trump will use this to taint the 2026 election process, which is the last thing we need in our country right now.
The fact you have a right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Dan S. Sullivan from Alaska had been expected to be easily reelected this year. Alaska Democrats hadn’t won a Senate election in nearly 20 years. But here in 2026, the polls show a dead heat as the campaign enters the last week. President Trump, aided and abetted by the Attorney General of the United States, claims Senator Sullivan may lose due to the presence of a third candidate on the ballot. The third candidate is Daniel J. Sullivan. He is making a first run for any elected office. The second Mr. Sullivan lives in Petersburg, Alaska. A small town 120 miles due south of Juneau, the state capital. Should GOP incumbent Daniel Sullivan lose, President Trump and the AG are promising to overturn the election by a federal court suit.
The Petersburg resident says he’s a serious candidate running to win. He says his decision to run had not been influenced by having the same name as the incumbent Republican Senator.
Let’s cut to the chase: As we say in the Southland, that dog don’t hunt. The only reason the retired teacher from Petersburg is running as an independent is because he has the same name as the Republican incumbent. As Hall of Fame New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra famously said, some things are too coincidental to be a coincidence.
The man from Petersburg is making a mockery of our democratic election process. In many ways, this is poetic justice for President Trump and his enablers. They have been trying to make a mockery of our election process in the other 49 states. As the saying goes in politics, what goes around comes around. We elect the president to uphold the constitution. That’s what it says in the oath of office. He isn’t elected to destroy the constitution.
Sadly, however, we have seen this type of name game played before in congressional politics. This happened in 1946 in the first election campaign of a young fella named John F. Kennedy. That’s right: the same JFK who has long been a hero to people like myself.
In that year, his father Joseph P. Kennedy shopped around for a congressional district to launch the political career of his eldest living son. The incumbent member of Congress from the 11th District in Massachusetts had decided not to seek reelection. JFK’s father believed his millions could buy a seat for JFK. Joe Kennedy viewed a local elected official named Joseph Russo as the strongest Democratic primary opponent for JFK. So what did old man Kennedy do? He had Kennedy campaign operatives put a second Joseph Russo on the primary ballot. A twenty-seven year old janitor with no political experience or frankly any interest in elective office. We know now this had been a strategy cooked up by Kennedy campaign operatives to confuse voters. We know Joe Kennedy funded this shady campaign tactic.
When the primary election returns were in, JFK had won in runway with over 40% of the vote. The feared Mr. Russo ran third. He had never actually been a threat to JFK. The 27-year-old janitor got only 750 votes.
Thus the ruse of having two Sullivans on the Alaska general election ballot is hardly a new shady strategy. Mr. Sullivan from Petersburg says his situation is not an akin to the second Russo scheme of 1946. He says he is generally interested in running and is not part of a back room deal with Alaska Democrats.
The available evidence indicates he is not the new John Russo. But at the same time, it’s clear he isn’t running to win, nor to promote a cause. This is a mischief candidacy, which the Alaska Supreme Court says is permitted under the state and federal constitutions.
But to repeat: just because you have a constitutional right to do it doesn’t make it the right thing to do for America.
If Republican Senator Daniel S. Sullivan were not running for reelection, then Petersburg’s Daniel J. Sullivan would not be running. Does he take us for such fools we would believe otherwise?
Making matters more fascinating is Alaska’s use of ranked choice voting. This is a relatively new concept in American democracy. Rank choice voting works this way. Assume there are three candidates for the United States Senate. Assume Alaskans give 49% to the Democratic nominee, 48% to Republican Senator Sullivan and 3% to Petersburg resident Sullivan. Thus no one got 50%. Under rank choice voting, you go to see who the 3% listed as their second choice. Then you add these votes to the other votes for the two remaining candidates.
The candidate with the most votes is now the United States Senator from Alaska.
Accordingly, if Sullivan is merely a confusing presence, then presumably the second choice of his voters would’ve been the other Sullivan. Therefore, at least in theory, his presence may not have changed the outcome in the final analysis.
As I understand the United States Constitution, the United States Senate has the final say on the outcome in the Alaska Senate race. The new Senate gets to vote on who’s entitled to the seat from Alaska.
Back in 1948, the United States Senate had to decide whether candidate Lyndon B. Johnson had legally won the Texas Democratic Senate primary or whether illegal votes made him the winner over Coke Stevenson. Thus invalidating his general election victory. The Senate stood with Johnson, even though we now know LBJ stole the election. The winning votes suddenly being found six days after supposedly all votes had been counted. These roughly 200 paper ballots miraculously cast in alphabetical order and filled out in the same handwriting. These lost but now found votes gave LBJ a 87 vote winning margin in the Democratic Senate primary.
There used to be a time in our politics when we actually believed two wrongs didn’t make a right. We no longer believe this. Thus President Trump and his Attorney General are determined to bring a wrongful lawsuit to overcome what they consider a wrong. We seem to be slipping ever further and faster into the rabbit hole of two wrongs make a right. This can be a deep hole for a democracy to climb out of.
I get their frustration over their two Sullivan problem.
But the real problem facing Senator Sullivan is the fact President Trump has the worst approval rating of any president in the midterm elections since Harry Truman in 1946. Trump has earned his approval rating the old-fashioned way: by having the worst fifth and six years of any presidency since Richard Nixon
Based on his historically bad performance, I think the polls are understating the potential of the Democratic wave about the crest across America on November 3rd. The only card Trump has to play is to apologize to those who voted for him three times and ask they do not saddle him with a Democratic Congress. But as we know, he’s never wrong just ask him. This ego may turn out to be the Democrat’s best asset next week
Mr. Trump‘s loss of support among his own voters is dragging Mr. Sullivan down, not a retired school teacher from the small town of Petersburg.
The fact President Trump is already talking about a lawsuit suggests he fears a Democratic win in Alaska. If the Democratic nominee wins, and the Democrats win the Senate majority as I believe will happen, she will be seated irrespective of what Trump and the Attorney General may file in federal court.
The last Alaskan to make national news was what’s her name who ran for vice president in 2008. Sarah, something or other. I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of years from now no one can remember the name of these Alaskan Sullivans either.
PAUL GOLDMAN is former Chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, a former candidate for mayor of the City of Richmond, and author of “Remaking Virginia Politics.”
