By SUZANNE DOWNING
June 6, 2026 – As Alaska election officials weigh complaints about a US Senate candidate sharing the same name as the state’s incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, a similar controversy has unfolded in Washington state, where two gubernatorial candidates named Bob Ferguson have now withdrawn from the race after allegations that they were recruited to purposefully confuse voters.
The parallel is striking.
In Alaska, a Petersburg resident named Dan Sullivan recently filed to run for the US Senate and even changed his voter registration to Republican. He has a history of donating to Democrats, including Senate candidate Mary Peltola. His candidacy places him on the same ballot as incumbent Republican US Sen. Dan Sullivan, who has represented Alaska in the Senate since 2015.
The filing prompted concerns from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which sent a letter to Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, asking for additional safeguards to prevent voter confusion.
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Alaska election officials have not yet announced what actions, if any, they may take before ballots are printed in early July.
Meanwhile, Washington state has already experienced a different version of the same controversy.
Earlier this week, two candidates named Bob Ferguson withdrew from Washington’s gubernatorial race after pressure from Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the Democratic frontrunner for governor. Had they remained in the race, three candidates with the same name and party affiliation would have appeared on the Aug. 6 primary ballot.
Attorney General Ferguson characterized the effort as a deliberate attempt to mislead voters.
“Look, it’s clear what’s going on. Anti-Democracy Republicans orchestrated a deceptive and illegal scheme to deceive voters and illegally influence the election,” Ferguson told reporters after his campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to the other candidates.
Washington law contains an actual provision addressing such situations. Candidates who file for office under the same name as a person with a widely known political reputation may face a Class B felony charge if authorities determine they intended to mislead voters.
Alaska has no such law but the Washington law sets a type of precedent that could show Alaska’s lieutenant governor how to proceed and even boot the Petersburg Poser from the ballot.
The Washington controversy drew national attention after a conservative activist acknowledged helping recruit candidates sharing the attorney general’s name. Glen Morgan told The Seattle Times he had attempted to find even more Bob Fergusons to place on the ballot before the filing deadline.
Washington Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh said the state GOP was not involved in the effort, while Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert publicly stated that he did not support attempts to deceive voters.
Public records showed the two additional Bob Ferguson candidates had filed as Democrats and listed the same UPS store in Olympia as their campaign address.
One candidate, Robert Benjamin Ferguson, withdrew while claiming he was doing so “under duress.” The other, Robert Arthur Ferguson, withdrew just before the state’s deadline, saying his lifelong dream of running for governor had been destroyed because he shared a name with a more prominent politician.
Their departures leave only Attorney General Bob Ferguson on the ballot under that name.
The Washington episode has intensified discussion about how election systems handle candidates with identical names.
In Alaska, the issue is now squarely before state election officials. The state’s Division of Elections and lieutenant governor must now decide: Should the Petersburg Poser just be booted from the ballot altogether?
With overseas and military ballots scheduled to be mailed in early July, election officials have only a narrow window to determine how they will address concerns over the Decoy Dan candidacy.
The outcome could establish an important precedent for future Alaska elections, particularly as ranked-choice voting and open primaries continue to produce unusually large candidate fields and crowded ballots.
