Alaska’s Name Game in Senate Race | Anchorage News

0:00So, there's this dude, Dan J. Sullivan, who's running for US Senate in Alaska. He only got 2.5% of the vote in the primary, but he's staying in the race. The big issue is, he shares a name with the incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan, and people think he's trying to confuse voters. The state tried to kick him off the ballot, but the Alaska Supreme Court said he could stay. Now, the incumbent Senator Sullivan got 41.4% in the primary, and the top vote-gitter was Mary Peltola, with almost 50%. Another candidate, David Leslie, dropped out, which means Gerald Hikes, who got just 1.1% is now on the ballot. It's getting kind of wild with all these names and party affiliations. Senator Sullivan is accusing Dan J. Sullivan of running a fake campaign to mess with people. But honestly, the early voting numbers show most of Dan J. Sullivan's votes came from areas that usually lean Democrat. So maybe there wasn't that. Such confusion, after all. Dan J. Sullivan says he's running because he's not happy with how Senator Sullivan has

1:03been doing his job for the last 12 years. He's also calling off the Senator's stance on foreign policy and pointing to Alaska's low rankings in child well-being and business climate. Dan J. Sullivan feels like the current politics are dividing people and not solving real problems. He's saying he wants a different path forward for Alaska and the nation. Alaska uses this ranked-choice voting system. Basically, everyone runs together in the primary and the top four go to the general election. Then voters rank their choices. If no one gets over 50% of the top votes, they eliminate the last place candidate and redistribute those votes. It's designed to avoid splitting votes, but it's not a perfect system and sometimes candidates still get a lot of support from unexpected places. Stay informed with Anchorage News today, AI-powered updates.