The pivotal U.S. Senate race in Alaska is now embroiled in threats from the president and probes from the state’s governor over a candidate appearing on the ballot with the same name as the Republican incumbent.
Washington state has been there before, though its drama fizzled out before reaching the level of the firestorm erupting in Alaska.
In Alaska, the campaign for Democratic candidate and former congresswoman Mary Peltola, along with the national Democratic Senate campaign arm, recruited candidates to act as spoilers against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, according to The New York Times. Until the blockbuster reporting was published this week, Peltola had denied any involvement in the run by the second Dan Sullivan, a retired teacher living in remote Alaska.
Alaska’s governor ordered an investigation into the issue. President Donald Trump called for Peltola to be prosecuted, and has threatened to sue to block the results if she wins a close election. The U.S. Department of Justice reportedly issued new subpoenas as part of a criminal investigation into the scandal Thursday.
This is one of the key campaigns that will decide control of the Senate.
In Washington, the same-name scenario played out in 2024 when three-term Attorney General Bob Ferguson entered as the odds-on favorite in the race for governor.
It quickly got weird when Glen Morgan, a conservative Republican and founder of We the Governed, convinced two other Washingtonians named Bob Ferguson to join the race for governor, and paid their $2,000 filing fees. Neither had political experience — just disdain for the attorney general.
Ferguson cried foul. He argued the same names appearing alongside his on the primary ballot could mislead voters.
Ferguson’s campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to the other Bobs and threatened to have them criminally prosecuted if they did not withdraw. He vowed to see them charged under a longstanding state law that makes it a felony to run against someone of the same name and “whose political reputation is widely known, with intent to confuse and mislead the electors by capitalizing on the public reputation of the candidate who had previously filed.”
That law resulted from confusion stirred up in the 1942 primary fight between Commissioner of Public Lands A.C. Martin and an unknown challenger named O.C. Martin. Democratic Rep. John O’Brien of Seattle introduced legislation in the ensuing 1943 session to deal with future situations when candidates with similar names squared off in the same contest.
More than 80 years later, Ferguson, with the help of attorneys from Pacifica Law Group, pushed Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a fellow Democrat, to differentiate his name-sharers on the ballot with their middle initials and occupations. He also wanted the three to appear consecutively on the ballot.
Hobbs refused to change the candidates’ order, despite Ferguson’s wishes, which led to a “spirited conversation,” Hobbs said at the time.
Those hardball tactics led Mark Mullet, a Democratic state senator also running for governor, to accuse the attorney general of pressuring the secretary of state to break state law over the ballot order. Ferguson insinuated Hobbs wouldn’t change the order because Hobbs had endorsed Mullet, which the election official denied.
In the meantime, the other Bob Fergusons dropped out before the filing deadline, mooting the matter. At the time, one cited harassment and the potential legal action for his decision to exit.
The episode resulted in various nicknames, including Three Bob Night and the Three Bob Problem.
Hobbs said Thursday that he tries not to think about that brief issue “from the PTSD I suffered from it.” He added that he would’ve handled the situation the same way now.
“Just like Alaska, we would have clearly called out which Bob was who,” Hobbs said, but “let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
Morgan said Thursday that he didn’t coordinate with a campaign for his ballot-stacking effort, a clear contrast from the allegations in Alaska.
“Obviously the Democrats think it is just fine in Alaska, but how dare anyone file for office with the same name in Washington state,” he said.
