Alaska’s Election System Blunts Political Gamesmanship

Two candidates named Dan Sullivan will appear on the November general election ballot for Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, prompting critics to blame the state’s top-four election system. Those same political insiders point to the presence of a convicted felon on the ballot for another race this fall as further evidence that the system invites unserious or bad-faith candidates.

These criticisms not only lack important context, they’re outright wrong. We compiled a brief history of “political dirty tricks,” and what’s clear is that political gamesmanship is neither new nor unique to Alaska— it occurs under every kind of primary system. The more important question is whether an election system allows those tactics to determine the winner. On that measure, Alaska’s system offers voters more protection, not less.

Seeing Double

Races featuring candidates with the same name have occurred repeatedly throughout history. In John F. Kennedy’s first congressional race in 1946, his father reportedly recruited another candidate who shared the name of one of Kennedy’s opponents. In Pennsylvania, little-known candidates named Robert Casey twice won statewide Democratic nominations during the 1970s, benefiting from confusion with a prominent politician of the same name.

More recently, in 2020, a former Florida legislator was convicted of felonies after paying a sham candidate named Alex Rodriguez to run against Democratic state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez. The ghost candidate received more than 6,000 votes; Rodríguez lost by 32. And in Washington’s 2024 race for governor, two additional candidates named Bob Ferguson filed to run against the state attorney general of the same name, with their filing fees paid by a Republican activist.

Even wilder: This isn’t the first Dan Sullivan match up in Alaska’s history. In 2014, years before the top-four system took effect, Dan Sullivan ran for U.S. Senate while another Dan Sullivan, then the mayor of Anchorage, ran for lieutenant governor on the same Republican primary ballot. News outlets mixed up their photographs, and polling showed voters confusing the two candidates. 

A Tradition of Gamesmanship

The traditional party primary system has also repeatedly failed to prevent other forms of manipulation. Democrats routinely spend millions to help nominate Republicans they consider easier to defeat, including Todd Akin in Missouri in 2012 and several candidates in 2022. Republicans have increasingly used the same playbook in Democratic primaries. Both parties have also recruited or supported independent and third-party candidates to divide their opponents’ votes in general elections.

Those tactics are actually more effective in party primary systems, where a candidate can win without majority support. Before Alaska adopted its current system, seven of 11 gubernatorial elections following the creation of the Alaskan Independence Party were won with less than a majority. So were five of the seven U.S. Senate elections held in Alaska this century before the new system took effect.

The Road to Fairer Elections 

Alaska’s current system helps limit that vulnerability. Every voter can participate in the same primary, four candidates advance, and the ranked ballot in the general election ensures that a candidate must build broader support among voters who express a preference between the finalists. A decoy candidate may attract attention or cause confusion, but cannot as easily win—or tip the election—by dividing the vote.

No election system can prevent every publicity stunt, bad-faith candidacy or objectionable candidate from reaching the ballot. But Alaska’s system gives all voters a say and makes political gamesmanship less likely to determine the outcome. That is not a flaw in the system. It is one of its most important safeguards.

For more examples of political dirty tricks, check out our new memo.

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