What's in a name? Everything if yours is Anchorage Mayor Dan A. Sullivan. Sullivan, a candidate for the Alaska lieutenant governor's office, said he is getting tired of people mistaking him for his namesake, U.S. Senate candidate and former Attorney General Dan S. Sullivan. Both men will appear on the upcoming August primary ballot, albeit in different races. After KTUU -- Anchorage's NBC affiliate -- mistakenly posted a picture of Mayor Sullivan on a story about the onetime attorney general, the former said he wants to do something about the confusion. KTUU isn't the only local media outlet that has made the gaffe. CBS affiliate KTVA has also posted stories using the wrong picture.
The KTUU story -- about former AG Sullivan raising $1.4 million in the first quarter of 2014 -- was updated with the correct picture, but not before people, including Mayor Sullivan, noticed the mistake. Mayor Sullivan said only half-jokingly that he feels he should be compensated for the continued mistakes that result in his picture being used for stories about the Senate candidate.
"I sent (the Sullivan for Senate campaign) a bill for $100,000 for the use of my likeness in their campaign," Mayor Sullivan said.
But the name confusion is a very real problem for the current Anchorage mayor, who wants to ascend to the lieutenant governor's job. The August primary ballot, on which both men are running as Republicans, will list the U.S. Senate race on the ballot above that of the lieutenant governor's race. Mayor Sullivan said he is worried people who vote for former AG Sullivan -- who has also served as the state's commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources -- will hesitate before checking off his name in the voting booth.
"One of the things I think is going to happen is: His name appears above me on ballot so they might think, 'I already voted for that guy, and I can't vote for him twice,'" Mayor Sullivan said.
Mayor Sullivan, who is the son of former Anchorage Mayor George Sullivan and hails from a prominent Alaska family, has name recognition in the Last Frontier. Could that carry over to the former attorney general? Mayor Sullivan said he plans on contacting state elections officials next week to figure out if anything can be done to stem voter confusion at the polls in August, suggesting that perhaps using his mayoral title on the ballot may make a difference.
"In elections, people hate confusion," Mayor Sullivan said. "So in this particular case, I think (state election officials) need to be a little more liberal in how they allow candidate identification to be on the ballot."
A spokesman for former Attorney General Sullivan said that his campaign had no comment on the name confusion.
While the August primary ballot represents the first time anyone can remember that two people with the same first and last names have appeared on a ballot together, there may be little the state Division of Elections can do about it because it lacks the statutory authority to deviate from only using the given name of a candidate. But despite the Anchorage media confusion, Division of Elections officials said they don't think name confusion among the two Daniel Sullivans will be a big deal.
"I think the average voter is smarter than that," said Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai.
If both men win their respective primary races -- Mayor Sullivan faces state Sen. Lesil McGuire, and former Attorney General Sullivan is squaring off against Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller -- the issue will come up again in the November general election.
Contact Sean Doogan at sean(at)alaskadispatch.com