Alaska Senate race takes bizarre turn as a second Dan Sullivan files against GOP incumbent

Alaska Republicans just got a bizarre monkey wrench thrown into their U.S. Senate election, as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan is facing a challenge — from Dan Sullivan.

According to the Alaska Landmine news outlet, "A Dan Sullivan from Petersburg says he is filing for the U.S. Senate race," specifically, Dan James Sullivan, not to be confused with the incumbent Dan Scott Sullivan.

"For too long, Senator Sullivan has failed to put Alaska first," said Dan James Sullivan, who will run as an independent, in his press release. "When you truly care about a people and a place, you have a duty to make every sacrifice within your power to protect them. That's why I'm running."

If Dan James Sullivan qualifies for the ballot, it could prove a headache for Republicans, who are already at serious risk of losing to former Rep. Mary Peltola, the only Democrat to win a statewide election in Alaska in the last 10 years; many polls show Peltola leading the Senate race.

Alaska uses a "top four" ranked-choice voting system, where the four most popular candidates in the primaries advance to a general election, and voters rank them in order of preference rather than simply selecting one.

These are not the only two Dan Sullivans involved in Alaska politics; a third, Dan Albert Sullivan, previously served as the Republican mayor of Anchorage, and even briefly mounted a campaign of his own for Senate in 2016 against Alaska's other senator, Lisa Murkowski, before swiftly dropping out.