Ex-mayor Dan Sullivan supports incumbent Dan Sullivan’s Senate bid against third Dan Sullivan

Endorsement of Republican incumbent over challenger with same name adds twist to unusual campaign in Alaska

Republican senator Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola advance in Alaska Senate primary

Dan Sullivan supports Dan Sullivan against Dan Sullivan in Alaska ’s US Senate election , says a former Alaskan mayor who recently backed the race’s Republican incumbent over a challenger sharing their name.

That development provided another of multiple absurd elements to Dan S Sullivan’s campaign for a third term in the US Senate, which – beside Mary Peltola, a former Alaska Democratic congresswoman – has drawn opposition from Dan J Sullivan.

Dan J Sullivan emerged from an 18 August primary to join a four-candidate field rounded out by Dan S Sullivan, Peltola and one other contender. And his presence in the field for the general election during the 3 November midterms has prompted accusations that he is a Democratic plant aiming to draw enough votes away from Dan J Sullivan – whose name was positioned consecutively to him on the primary ballot – so that Peltola can win.

Donald Trump’s Republican party is projected to lose congressional seats during the midterms, and the president wrote on social media on the day of the primary: “ALASKA: Be careful. VOTE FOR THE REAL DAN SULLIVAN TODAY.

“The Dumocrats know how good he is and have put up an imposter of the same name.”

Trump was not the only Republican politico to come out swinging for Dan S Sullivan’s re-election bid on the day of the primary, in which Peltola finished first. Another who came out in favor of the incumbent was Dan A Sullivan, the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska , for six years beginning in 2009.

“As the OG Dan Sullivan, I urge Alaskans to vote for [Senator] Daniel S Sullivan,” he also wrote. “He’s been great for Alaska.”

Dan A Sullivan’s statement of support for Dan S Sullivan, the senator, at the expense of Dan J Sullivan invoked a colloquial term meaning original. It was unclear if he staked the claim of being the original because, at 75, he was older than Dan S Sullivan, 61, and Dan J Sullivan, 70, a retired schoolteacher and US Forest Service employee with no prior political experience.

He also entered his first elected office before Dan S Sullivan – on Anchorage’s governing assembly, where he served from 1999 to 2008.

The Republican party unsuccessfully went to court to try to prevent Dan J Sullivan from running in the primary, maintaining that his campaign was a Democratic-engineered sham trying to confuse voters into selecting him rather than Alaska’s junior US senator since 2015.

Dan J Sullivan – who appeared on the primary ballot with no party affiliation – has denied running at the behest of the Democratic party, which has not held a Senate seat in Alaska since 2008.

“This is my choice,” he said to the Associated Press in June. Adding that he was displeased with the state of affairs in the US, he told the outlet: “I have every right to run.”