Chuck Schumer wants control of the Senate badly enough to pull a scam on actual voters.
Three Alaska judges just ruled on the scheme his allies cooked up to make that happen.
What those judges agreed to let stand on Alaska's ballot will make Republicans furious.
Alaska Senate Race Ranked-Choice Voting Explained
Alaska hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 20 years.
Republican Dan Sullivan has held one of the state’s Senate seats since 2015. Schumer wants it gone after November.
He found his opening in Mary Peltola, the former Democrat congresswoman he personally recruited into the race.
But Peltola alone was never enough to beat an incumbent in a state Trump carried by 13 points.
Alaska doesn't run normal primaries. Every candidate from every party lands on one ballot, and the top four advance to a ranked-choice general election in November.
That single detail is what makes a second Republican candidate so dangerous.
If two men named Dan Sullivan both make the final four, Republican voters split their votes between them instead of uniting behind one name.
Split Republican votes hand Peltola a path to victory she could never earn on her own.
Dan Sullivan Sham Candidate Disqualified by Alaska Elections Officials
A 69-year-old retired teacher from Petersburg named Daniel J. Sullivan filed to run for the seat last month.
His campaign consultant has spent years working for Democrats and openly cheered Peltola's chances of winning the seat.
The campaign website was deliberately styled to mirror the senator's own.
Sullivan had never been a registered Republican in his life until weeks before he filed, and once he did, he asked the state to list him on the ballot simply as "Dan Sullivan."
Alaska's Division of Elections looked at the pattern and disqualified him. Director Carol Beecher ruled his candidacy "was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead."
Voters in Alaska watched the man do exactly what he was accused of and deny every bit of it.
Alaska Supreme Court Ruling Reverses Dan Sullivan Ballot Decision
Sullivan sued and Judge Thomas Matthews sided with him..
Matthews ruled the state has no authority to ask why a man is running for office.
The Constitution lists three qualifications for the Senate: age, citizenship, residency. Matthews said that's the whole test.
"The director's assertion that Mr. Sullivan seeks to confuse or mislead voters is not supported by a preponderance of evidence," he wrote.
Fourteen Republican attorneys general didn't buy it. They raced an emergency brief to the Alaska Supreme Court warning the ruling would force the state to "permit bad-faith ballot access" to anyone willing to exploit the loophole.
The high court wasn't moved. Justices affirmed Matthews' ruling in a brief order and punted the only fight still standing – how the ballot gets printed – back to the same election officials who already lost once.
Justice Aimee Oravec waved off the entire scheme during arguments, telling the state's attorney that people run for office "to highlight an issue, to see what the process is like."
Mary Peltola Senate Race Gains Ground After Sullivan Ruling
Sen. Sullivan's campaign spokesman Nate Adams didn't soften it. "The only reason he is running is to deceive voters and manipulate Alaska's election system."
The state tried one last fix. It asked the court to strip the lookalike candidate's Republican label entirely and list him as "Daniel James Sullivan Jr.," nonpartisan.
His attorney shot that down in court, arguing Alaska law lets any candidate claim whatever party he wants, motives be damned.
Lisa Murkowski didn't go anywhere near the fake Sullivan. Alaska's other senator endorsed the real one instead.
Even Murkowski, who has crossed her own party plenty of times, wasn't buying what Schumer was selling.
Alaska's seat is one of roughly half a dozen Senate races that will decide who controls the chamber for Trump's final two years in office.
Schumer doesn't need to win Alaska honestly. He just needs to fool enough Republican voters to tip the race.
Sources
- Lisa Kashinsky, "Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan can face challenge from other Dan Sullivan, court says," POLITICO, June 29, 2026.
- Corinne Smith, "Alaska Supreme Court rules Dan J. Sullivan eligible to run for US Senate," Alaska Beacon, June 29, 2026.
- "Man with same name as U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible for Alaska's primary ballot, judge rules," PBS News, June 27, 2026.
- "US Sen. Dan Sullivan's same-name challenger can be on primary ballot, Alaska Supreme Court rules," CNN Politics, June 29, 2026.
- "Man with same name as Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan can appear on primary ballot, state's Supreme Court rules," CBS News, June 29, 2026.