Alaska
Man with same name as Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan can appear on GOP primary ballot, state’s Supreme Court rules
The battle of the Dan Sullivans is on.
The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Monday that a man with the same name as Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan can challenge the sitting lawmaker in the state’s GOP Senate primary in August. The high court upheld a ruling from a lower court judge that cleared the way for Daniel J. Sullivan to appear on the primary ballot, reversing a decision by state officials earlier this month that he was ineligible because he was allegedly trying to confuse voters.
The state Supreme Court directed Alaska’s Division of Elections to decide how Daniel J. Sullivan should be listed on the ballot “within the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law.”
The conflict is taking place in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate elections. The sitting Sen. Sullivan is running for a third term, but former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is vying to challenge him, setting up what could be an unusually competitive race in a deep-red state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in almost 20 years.
The senator has called his same-name competitor a “sham candidate” and accused him of trying to trick voters and help Democrats flip the seat. Daniel J. Sullivan — a retired teacher and former U.S. Forest Service employee from Petersburg, Alaska — has denied those allegations and insisted he is both qualified and genuinely interested in running for Senate.
About two weeks ago, the Alaska Division of Elections determined that the challenger Sullivan could not appear on the ballot, arguing his paperwork “was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead.”
In a letter to the candidate, Director Carol Beecher pointed to the fact that Daniel J. Sullivan had initially requested to appear on the ballot as “Dan Sullivan,” the same name format as the senator. She also wrote that he hadn’t previously been affiliated with the state Republican Party, had a website design that “appears to be deliberate[ly]” similar to the senator’s campaign site and had worked with a political consultant with links to Democratic candidates.
Daniel J. Sullivan asked a state court to reverse the decision. On Friday, Judge Thomas Matthews ruled in his favor, finding the non-senator Sullivan met the requirements to run for U.S. Senate and the state didn’t have the authority to exclude him based on “good faith.”
“The court does not minimize the Division’s concern that voters should not be misled,” the judge wrote. But he added that “Alaska election law gives the Division tools to address that concern,” including regulating how candidates appear on the ballot.
With ballots set to be printed this week, the issue was appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court on an expedited basis, with both sides filing court papers over the weekend.
The state Division of Elections asked the high court to overturn Matthews’ ruling, arguing it would “leave Alaska constitutionally required to permit bad-faith ballot access.” The agency said it reached its conclusion about Daniel J. Sullivan after it received a complaint from the National Republican Senatorial Committee “credibly alleging” he was seeking to “cause voter confusion” and made a “bewildering” request to appear on the ballot with the senator’s middle initial.
If Daniel J. Sullivan is permitted to remain on the ballot, the state asked the Alaska Supreme Court to allow it to print his full name and list his party affiliation as “nonpartisan” to “ensure voters are not forced to guess between two nearly identical names.”
The Alaska Republican Party and several GOP-led states filed amicus briefs siding with Alaska.
Daniel J. Sullivan’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued the state “lacked any basis in Alaska law to exclude Mr. Sullivan from the ballot” and didn’t have the power to look into his “private motivations.” They wrote that state law doesn’t give officials the power to keep qualified candidates off the ballot due to potential confusion.
“[All] that Mr. Sullivan asks here is to be listed on the ballot, and the Division is obviously empowered to do so in a non-confusing manner,” his lawyers wrote.
Following oral arguments, the high court sided with Daniel J. Sullivan in a two-page order late Monday, and said it would issue a fuller opinion at a later date.
Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney for Daniel J. Sullivan, told CBS News his legal team is “grateful” for the Alaska Supreme Court’s decision to “affirm Judge Matthews’ well-reasoned, thorough order vacating the Division’s unlawful decision to exclude Mr. Sullivan as a candidate.”
“We expect that the Division will act in full compliance with existing Alaska ballot design law in its preparation of the ballots,” Robinson said in an email.
The senator’s campaign spokesperson, Nate Adams, said: “We’re disappointed in the court’s decision because as the sham candidate Dan J. Sullivan’s lawyers made clear in their legal arguments, the only reason he is running is to deceive voters and manipulate Alaska’s election system.”
“However, we are encouraged by the fact that the Director of the Division of Elections will be able to use her expertise to differentiate between the Petersburg fraud and the incumbent — Senator Dan Sullivan — to the benefit of Alaska voters,” Adams said.
An Alaska mechanic with a reputation of deception and theft who was wanted on millions in warrants was recently arrested at a Mat-Su residence, troopers said.
Authorities began looking for Charles Yingst in July after he cut off an ankle monitor and fled the North Pole residence he was confined to on house arrest while awaiting trial on fraud and theft charges filed early this year, according to court records.
Those actions resulted in the 44-year-old Yingst being indicted on four felony counts of third-degree escape, as well as prosecutors charging him with six misdemeanor counts of violating pre-trial release conditions, according to the indictment and charging documents.
He was wanted on multiple warrants totaling more than $2 million, Alaska State Troopers said in a Thursday statement.
Yingst was arrested Wednesday at a residence in Big Lake, troopers said.
While known as a soft-spoken and talented mechanic with a friendly demeanor, Yingst has a lengthy criminal history and a long list of victims who over the years have said he didn’t pay back personal loans, stole trucks he was working on, or took their money for vehicles and equipment Yingst advertised but never delivered.
He was first convicted on fraud and theft charges in 2006, court records show. Yingst faced more than two dozen new charges accusing him of similar crimes, in addition to forgery, in 2011 and 2018, according to online court records.
Felony convictions in those cases resulted in a prison sentence of 10 years, with four suspended, according to court documents. Yingst also was ordered to pay about $640,000 in fines and restitution, which online court records show was mostly unpaid as of Saturday.
Fairbanks grand juries indicted Yingst on several new felony, attempted fraud and theft charges in four separate cases spanning 2025 and early this year, according to court records. Prosecutors accused him of stealing, or attempting to steal, tens of thousands of dollars, according to the indictments.
In one 2025 incident detailed by probation officers in a July 22 petition asking a judge to initiate Yingst’s suspended prison sentence, Yingst allegedly took more than $48,000 from a man for “engine and transmission purchases” but never provided the items and ignored the victim’s attempts to contact him.
Weeks later, according to the probation officers’ petition, he attempted to convince a Fairbanks business owner to buy an excavator and two skid steers Yingst didn’t possess for about $36,000.
“The defendant is once again preying on the hard-working people of his community and creating more victims,” according to the document signed by probation supervisor Amber Terrill and probation officer Sheri White. “The defendant does not seem to show any remorse for the victims he has created through his behaviors.”
Yingst’s ankle monitor traced him leaving the residence he was restricted to in North Pole on July 21 before the device later notified authorities that he had cut off the electronic monitor, Pretrial Services Officer Rebecca Iverson wrote in a July 22 affidavit attached to the initial charging document in the newest charges.
Yingst’s whereabouts were unknown through at least Aug. 6, when he failed to appear for a hearing in Fairbanks in his ongoing 2025 theft case and prosecutors told a judge that they believed he had fled, according to unofficial notes from the hearing.
But after a long search involving multiple agencies, such as the U.S. Marshals Service, and a lengthy surveillance operation, he was arrested “without incident” in Big Lake, troopers said in the statement.
Yingst was jailed at the Mat-Su Pretrial facility as of Saturday afternoon, according to an online jail roster.
On Thursday, Fairbanks District Court Judge Ben Seekins set a $100,000 cash performance bond for Yingst in his newest case, according to the judge’s order.
Yingst would also need to find a court-approved approved third-party custodian who would be responsible for ensuring he follows any new release conditions or appears for court hearings, according to Seekins’ order.
Yings did not enter a plea during Thursday’s hearing. His arraignment in Fairbanks Superior Court is scheduled for Wednesday.
Patrick Roach, a public defender representing Yingst, didn’t respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Thousands flocked to Alyeska Resort in Girdwood Saturday for the first of a two-day celebration centered around blueberries in bloom.
“We have been blessed with beautiful weather today,” Alyeska Director of Special Events and Partnerships Arab Ginnett said. “This is for all of our blueberry enthusiasts or people that just want to support the local community.”
The festival has 75 vendors, all of whom are local to Alaska selling a variety of wares, many of them blueberry-related.
“It’s been great,” first-time vendor Dana Mathews of Dana Mae’s Cookies said. “What time is it? Noon? And I’ve sold over half my product already.”
Some vendors also sought to give back to the Girdwood community hosting the event.
Several students at Girdwood Elementary School ran a blueberry-themed frozen lemonade stand to support their biannual class trip to the east coast.
“We want to travel and see the world,” student Rudy Gelinas, one of many hoping to go to Washington, D.C. and New York. “We live in Alaska and we’re used to the same stuff and we normally don’t go traveling that often.”
The festival opens its doors from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
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Alaska US Senate candidate Mary Peltola has rejected the support of Kamala Harris, her fellow Democrat, after the 2024 presidential candidate sent out a seemingly unsolicited fundraising appeal on Peltola’s behalf.
Harris, who lost Alaska – typically a Republican-voting state – by 13 points during her unsuccessful White House run, on Wednesday sent an email from her political organization to supporters of Peltola, a former US House member.
“If there’s anyone who can flip Alaska and secure the Senate majority for Democrats – it’s Mary,” the email, which was signed “Kamala Harris”, said. “But she cannot do it alone.”
It asked recipients to donate to Fight for the People Pac, which Harris set up last year. Donations would be split between Harris’s organization and Peltola, the email said.
It was a fairly innocuous message and didn’t explicitly endorse Peltola. But the unwanted help was swiftly batted away by the Alaskan’s campaign.
“Mary isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48 – her focus is and always will be Alaska,” a Peltola spokesperson said in a statement to KTUU that invoked a term for the contiguous US. “That’s why she’s proud to have the endorsement of [the American Federation of Government Employees], the Alaska [American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations], the Alaska [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers] Local 1547 and more than 10,000 Alaskans who have signed up to volunteer with the campaign.”
The campaign was right to be concerned because Peltola’s Republican opponent almost immediately used the email to try to tie Peltola – a moderate Democrat whose campaign has focused on Alaskan issues rather than party politics – to Harris.
“Kamala Harris supported the Biden administration’s disastrous anti-Alaska agenda, which is why Alaskans rejected her by double digits,” Nate Adams, a spokesperson for the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, said in a statement. “Alaskans can see exactly whose team Mary Peltola and Kamala Harris are on, and it isn’t Alaska’s.”
The episode suggests Harris remains a divisive figure within the Democratic party, even as the former vice-president weighs another run for president. Earlier this year, Harris, who also ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, left the door open when asked about her future ambitions.
“Listen, I might, I might. I’m thinking about it, I’m thinking about it,” Harris said, when US civil rights leader Al Sharpton asked if she was planning to run again.
Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic 2024 presidential candidate after questions and concerns about Biden’s fitness as he initially ran for re-election became inescapable. With only 107 days to run her campaign, she lost the electoral college and the popular vote to Donald Trump to hand him a second presidency.
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