The other Dan Sullivan in Alaska’s Senate race, who has said relatively little despite being at the center of a legal and political maelstrom, defended his position on the ballot in rare public comments on Monday.
The long-shot candidacy of Mr. Sullivan, a retired elementary schoolteacher who lives in a small Alaskan fishing village called Petersburg, has attracted outsized national attention because he has the same name as the state’s incumbent Republican senator. Republicans have accused Mr. Sullivan of Petersburg of being a spoiler aimed at confusing voters to help Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee. He was briefly removed from the ballot until a state court reinstated him.
The Justice Department, on President Trump’s order, filed a lawsuit last week seeking to block the certification of the race if votes for the former schoolteacher prevent the incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan, from winning. Election law specialists have been skeptical of the litigation’s merits.
On Monday, the lesser-known Mr. Sullivan told a reporter for The Alaska Beacon that the lawsuit was “a gross misuse of the Justice Department for a situation that has already been litigated and resolved by the Alaska Supreme Court.”
“I think the Division of Elections did a notable job of differentiating two candidates on the ballot with similar names and the primary showed there was little if any confusion,” Mr. Sullivan wrote to the reporter, who interviewed him over email on behalf of a wider group of interested news outlets. “Alaskan voters are smart and I have faith in their ability to make an informed decision on their ballots.”
Throughout it all, Mr. Sullivan, the former teacher, has maintained that he is not part of a Democratic plot. He has not campaigned and has done few interviews.
His motivations have been the subject of intense scrutiny. He told The New York Times in August that he had previously voted for Democratic candidates for president and for Ms. Peltola during her previous runs for statewide office. Although he registered with the Republican Party at the same time as announcing his Senate run, he said he was a moderate Republican running in good faith, unhappy with the senator’s tenure and with Mr. Trump.
On Monday, the state elections division confirmed that Mr. Sullivan had changed his party registration from Republican to “undeclared” when filling out an absentee ballot form in the primary.
He at first told the Alaska Beacon reporter that he had not changed his registration. But when the switch was describd to him, he replied via email, “holy cow.. I did! – I can only guess I was thinking that since they didn’t affiliate me on the ballot, i should go with that but to be honest with you, I am frazzled by all of this.”
He said that he was a bit overwhelmed by all of the attention, and planned to have a quiet election night with a handful of close supporters and friends.
“To say that it has now become overwhelming and intimidating is an understatement,” Mr. Sullivan wrote. “It is unending stress, at times paralyzing and I am looking forward to it being over.”
A spokesman for the incumbent Mr. Sullivan said after the lawsuit was filed that “Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan’s strong record of delivering for Alaska.”
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