Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) said late Wednesday that he was ordering an investigation into whether the Senate campaign of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola should face criminal charges or civil action over accusations that it helped recruit a spoiler candidate in the state’s highly competitive race.
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“Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support,” Dunleavy wrote on X. “Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.”
His announcement followed a New York Times report that said Peltola’s campaign was involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan, an independent candidate with a name similar to the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, in an effort to dilute support for him. Both appear on the general election ballot along with Peltola and Republican candidate Gerald Heikes.
Peltola’s challenge against the incumbent Sullivan is key to Democrats’ bid to take back control of the Senate. Peltola was a prized recruit for the party, given her past electoral successes in securing the state’s at-large U.S. House seat and crossover appeal to Republican voters.
The state had already received nearly 62,000 early ballots, including mail-in and in-person, of the 93,000 issued by the time Dunleavy announced his investigation.
Republicans have for months claimed Dan J. Sullivan was a plant intended to confuse voters. The retired teacher initially ran as a Republican and requested to be listed as Dan S. Sullivan, matching the middle initial of the sitting senator. Dan J. Sullivan shot down claims that he was part of a ploy by the Democrats, saying he listed the wrong middle initial in error and ran for the Senate because he was genuinely frustrated with the incumbent’s performance.
Sen. Sullivan told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the allegation against Peltola’s campaign was “a scandal at the highest order.”
He said Peltola, her campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) “spent over a year scheming in a secret operation to trick Alaskans to get them to throw away their vote.”
“The Democrats will do anything to gain power,” he added.
President Donald Trump said Wednesday at Joint Base Andrews, ahead of Dunleavy’s announcement, that Peltola should leave the race. “I think she should be prosecuted criminally,” Trump said.
He said earlier on social media that “Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot.”
In response to the Times story, a spokesperson for the Peltola campaign said Wednesday that the organization had no involvement with the campaign of either Dan Sullivan. In response to Trump’s legal threats, the Peltola campaign added: “Mary got in this race because Alaskans deserve a champion who is fighting to lower their costs and put Alaska first, and no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight.”
The campaign did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment following Dunleavy’s announcement.
In a statement Wednesday, the DSCC denied involvement with Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign. The organization added that Republicans have “long history of recruiting and propping up candidates in an attempt to boost their own campaigns.”
The Alaska Senate race has become one of the most closely watched nationwide. A Washington Post analysis of recent polls showed Peltola was leading by an average of five points in the state, which Trump won by 13 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
Republicans have for months attempted to boot Dan J. Sullivan from the ballot. In June, election officials in Alaska moved to remove him from the primary, agreeing that his entry was meant to confuse voters. But the state’s Supreme Court ruled later that month that both Sullivans could appear on the ballot.
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Dan J. Sullivan then advanced to the general election in the state’s August primary after receiving 2.5 percent of the vote.
He has since done practically no substantive campaigning. He has raised $30,555.62 as of mid-October, $10,400 of which he loaned from his own pocket. In comparison, the incumbent senator has raised more than $14 million in that time frame.
Last week, the Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of the results if Sen. Sullivan loses, citing the inclusion of the other Dan Sullivan on the ballot.
Derek T. Muller, University of Notre Dame law professor, said the department’s argument put forward in the suit was “absurdly thin” and “one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen.”
He said in a blog post last week that an investigation to determine whether name confusion affected the results “is essentially impossible.”
Peltola’s campaign, meanwhile, condemned that lawsuit in a statement as a “despicable political threat” and promised to “fight to ensure every single eligible voter in Alaska can make their voice heard.”
Name confusion is not new in Alaska. During Sen. Sullivan’s first race, in 2014, another Dan Sullivan, the then-mayor of Anchorage, was running for lieutenant governor as a Republican.
“Most voters in that Republican primary thought they were voting for the former mayor of Anchorage,” James Lottsfeldt, an Alaska strategist who is working with pro-Peltola super PACs, said in a September interview.
Lottsfeldt said at the time that he had searched in 2014 for other people named Dan Sullivan who could be run as spoiler candidates, though he denied ever executing on the plans or any involvement in Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign.
The Times reported, based on an interview with Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, that Lottsfeldt was, in fact, involved in financially boosting spoiler candidates, including Heikes. Rios was fired in August. She has not responded to messages for comment since the Times story published.
Lottsfeldt has continued to deny involvement, casting Rios as a disgruntled former employee.
The Alaska Republican Party also fought to include a candidate whom Democrats accused of being a spoiler in the 2024 House race when Peltola was running for reelection.
Eric Hafner, who is serving time in a federal prison in New York, ran as a Democrat that year, prompting the state’s Democratic Party to sue to have him removed from the ballot. Alaska Republicans intervened in the suit to support Hafner’s candidacy. Republican Nick Begich defeated Peltola in that year’s election.
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