By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 1, 2026 – Democrat David Leslie withdrew from Alaska’s US Senate race at the last minute Monday, clearing the way for fringe Republican Gerald Heikes to claim the fourth and final place on the November ballot. Heikes was used by Democrat organizations in the primary to take votes away from the Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The maneuver leaves Democrat Mary Peltola without another Democrat competing for votes, while incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan will share the ballot with two candidates positioned to draw votes from his side of the electorate: Gerald Heikes and Decoy Dan J. Sullivan
That ballot configuration should bring a quick end to the Republican slogan “rank the red.”
Heikes, a perennial candidate for the past 20 years, was promoted during the primary by a political action committee calling itself Right for Alaska. Although its advertising portrayed Heikes as the more conservative alternative to Sullivan, the group’s disclosed donor was William Harris of Massachusetts, whom The Alaska Story identified as a prolific contributor to Democrat candidates, and only Democrat candidates.
Right for Alaska spent more than $1 million promoting Heikes as a candidate to Sullivan’s right.
Heikes did not win enough support to make the top four on his own. He finished fifth with just 1.05% of the primary vote. But when Leslie withdrew before Monday’s deadline, Heikes moved into the fourth position.
Leslie, a Fairbanks Democrat associated with the hard-left Democratic Socialist wing of the party, received approximately 1.1% of the vote. That tiny share was enough to put him narrowly ahead of Heikes and initially qualify for November.
His withdrawal now gives Peltola exactly the ballot Democrats would prefer: one Democrat and three candidates who may attract Republican or Republican-leaning voters.
The certified primary results put Peltola close to an outright majority, with nearly 50% of the vote. Sullivan finished with 41.40%. Dan J. Sullivan Jr., the retired Petersburg teacher nicknamed “Decoy Dan,” received 2.47%, while Leslie and Heikes each hovered near 1%.
Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is particularly troublesome for the incumbent because of the similarity between their names. The senator will appear as Dan S. Sullivan, while the other candidate will appear as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. The latter has already demonstrated that he can attract thousands of votes despite conducting no campaign remotely comparable to those of any major candidate.
Critics, including Sen. Sullivan and his supporters, contend that the namesake candidate is intended to confuse voters and peel away votes from the incumbent. Independent reporting confirms the potential for voter confusion. The left-leaning Alaska Supreme Court allowed Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. to remain on the ballot after the Division of Elections initially rejected his candidacy.
Heikes presents a different kind of threat. His name is not confusing, but his campaign has been advertised to conservative voters as an ideological alternative to the incumbent. The money behind that effort, however, tells a very different political story.
The result is a ballot on which Republican voters will be told by some party activists to “rank the red,” even though two of the three Republican-associated choices could help Peltola by drawing first-choice votes away from the incumbent or causing ballots to become exhausted before reaching him.
Ranked-choice advocates argue that the system eventually transfers votes from eliminated candidates to each voter’s next choice. That only works, however, when voters rank additional candidates and understand precisely which candidates they are ranking. Some voters select only one candidate, while others may not distinguish between two candidates bearing nearly identical names.
In that environment, blindly ranking every candidate carrying a Republican label becomes less a strategy than a gamble.
Leslie’s withdrawal also illustrates how political actors have manipulated Alaska’s top-four system after voters cast their ballots. A candidate who received barely more than 1% advanced, withdrew before the deadline and caused another candidate with approximately 1% to be elevated into the general election.
Peltola, meanwhile, is left as the only Democrat and the undisputed center of Democratic support.
This is a textbook case of just how easily Alaska’s top-four primary and ranked-choice general election can be manipulated by strategic spending, voter confusion, insider coordination, and last-minute withdrawals.
4 thoughts on “Democrat David Leslie’s last-minute withdrawal puts three Republican-identified candidates against Peltola — and exposes the flaw in ‘rank the red’”
Ranked Choice Cheating, Brought to Alaska and forced through with millions upon millions of dollars in outside democrat money. This system was put in place as a cheating mechanism for democrats. This ballot is undisputable proof. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. The party of cheaters. The party of dishonesty. The democrats are ALWAYS doing exactly what they are accusing others of doing. Mary is the perfect example. She goes off about outside money, but is literally bought and paid for by outside democrats. They can’t win if they can’t cheat and they know it.
Bingo. When one’s world view is relative and there are no absolutes of right and wrong, cheating is just another ‘acceptable’ means to the desired end. Really our only hope is to rid ourselves of the RCV as then we can at least have real elections again.
They are indeed not hiding it. A mask off moment. Very ugly underneath. Marxists always are.
Lord alive I wish Trump had kept his 2024 promises. None of this would be an issue and we would be rolling to a win instead of this crap. Whatever rightist party comes next let’s keep our promises and not open a flank by becoming the party of war, surveillance and aggressive inflation. Thats the dems game- or should I say the donors game. And the donors don’t care what party is in power as long as they dance to their tune. Like Trump has done over the past year.
This should be our selling points for voting YES ON 2.