Petersburg’s Dan J. Sullivan stays on Alaska’s U.S. Senate ballot after third-place primary finish

Fourth-place finisher Democrat David Leslie withdraws, putting third a Republican — Gerald Heikes — on the November ballot

A demonstrator holds a protest sign in support of Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg after the Alaska Division of Elections issued a preliminary decision to remove the candidate from the ballot on June 12, 2026. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan J. Sullivan is staying in the race for U.S. Senate, he said Monday, hours before the deadline to withdraw from November’s election.

The Petersburg Republican finished third in August’s primary election, with just 2.5% of the vote statewide. He’s come under intense scrutiny because he shares a party affiliation and a first and last name with incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, who is seeking re-election. 

The state disqualified him from the ballot, but the decision was overturned by the Alaska Supreme Court in June. 

The incumbent senator finished second in the August primary with 41.4% of the vote.

Democratic candidate Mary Peltola finished first in the primary with 49.5% of the vote. 

Fourth-place finisher David Leslie, a Democratic candidate running to the left of Peltola, withdrew from the race late Monday, putting fifth-place finisher Gerald Heikes, a Republican running to the right of Dan S. Sullivan, on the ballot for November with just 1.1% of the vote.

Dan J. Sullivan and Peltola have denied working together, but Dan S. Sullivan has repeatedly accused Dan J. Sullivan of running a “sham” campaign intended to confuse voters.

But preliminary results indicated little confusion among Alaska voters — most of Dan J. Sullivan’s votes came from Democratic-leaning districts. 

In an emailed statement, Dan J. Sullivan said, “in the 3 months that I have been in this campaign, I have encountered obstacles that no other candidate in any of the other races has faced. Every time I took one step forward, roadblocks put me three steps back. It has been a time of extreme highs and lows. But with the support of family, friends and donors, I have persevered to this point. So, I am going to keep going and amplify the message that we need a different path forward.” 

Dan J. Sullivan has previously said he was motivated by unhappiness with Sen. Dan Sullivan’s performance in office, and he reiterated that in Monday’s statement.

“The politics of division as practiced by the Senator have not solved the problems we face today, in Alaska and as a nation. Are you better off now than you were 12 years ago when the Senator was first elected?” he said. 

Sen. Sullivan has been a vocal supporter of America’s war with Iran, something that Dan J. Sullivan calls “ill-conceived.”

He noted that Alaska ranks poorly in national ratings of childhood well-being and business climate. 

“Gasoline, food, housing and medical costs seem to increase daily. No matter how many times Washington tells us all is well in America, most of us see that as an absurd fallacy. These issues are the daily decisions and hardships that Alaskans really care about and I want to make their voices heard between now and November,” Dan J. Sullivan said. 

Under Alaska’s open primary system, all candidates for an office run against each other in the primary election. The top four candidates, regardless of political party, advance to the general election in November. There, voters rank the candidates in order of preference.

The candidate with the fewest top rankings is eliminated, and any votes for them are redistributed to their voters’ second choices.

The process continues until only two candidates are left, and the person with the most votes wins.

Ranked choice voting reduces the chances that candidates from the same party will split available voters and improve the odds for a candidate from a different party, but the system does not eliminate that chance entirely.

Since 2022, when Alaska began using the current system, a significant number of voters have continued to rank just one candidate.

As a result, political parties have pressured lower-finishing primary candidates to withdraw ahead of the general election in order to consolidate support. 

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.