Alaska's Division of Elections removed a qualified U.S. Senate candidate from the August primary ballot because his name happens to match the incumbent Republican senator's — and if that power grab stands, no candidate the establishment finds inconvenient is safe.
Here's what happened: Dan J. Sullivan, a Petersburg teacher, filed to run in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. He shares a name with incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, operating under Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, determined that Dan J. Sullivan did not declare an "actual good-faith candidacy" and removed him from the ballot, arguing he filed to confuse or mislead voters.
He probably did. The Anchorage Daily News editorial board called it what it looks like — "a dirty trick" and "cynical political nonsense." But they also made the critical point: in America, people are allowed to run for office for bad reasons.
The U.S. Constitution sets exactly three qualifications for serving in the Senate: age, citizenship, and residency. There is no sincerity test. There is no purity-of-motives requirement. There is no clause saying party leadership gets to veto candidates who irritate the incumbent.
A nonpartisan attorney advising the Alaska Legislature raised the alarm, writing that denying a congressional candidate ballot access because of a particular name would violate the Constitution. He also said Alaska election officials lack the authority to probe a candidate's motives for running.
The Alaska Libertarian Party nailed the real stakes: "Whatever you think of how he filed, sit with the precedent. The office that runs Alaska's elections removed a qualified candidate because the field got inconvenient. That power now exists. It will be there the next time someone decides a name doesn't belong."
That's the story. Not whether Dan J. Sullivan is running a stunt campaign — he almost certainly is. Not whether Sen. Dan S. Sullivan has reason to be annoyed — he does. The story is whether government bureaucrats can block a candidate who met every legal qualification because they've decided his heart isn't in it.
The Anchorage Daily News, to its credit, framed this as the constitutional overreach it is. The paper's editorial board noted that the Division of Elections' job is to make the ballot clear — put "incumbent" next to the sitting senator's name — not to protect incumbents from confused voters.
Meanwhile, The New York Times was occupied with a podcast segment on Vice President JD Vance's faith journey and new memoir — the kind of personality-profile journalism that treats politicians as celebrities rather than public servants who answer to the people. The Times offered no coverage of the Alaska ballot fight.
That's the pattern. When establishment power moves to keep competition off the ballot, the establishment press looks the other way. When a Republican administration does it to protect a Republican incumbent, the party-that-loves-democracy crowd has nothing to say.
The uniparty protects its own. The question is whether Alaska's courts will protect the Constitution.
