Alaska’s governor said late Wednesday he was ordering an investigation into whether the campaign for Democratic candidate Mary Peltola should face criminal charges or civil action following accusations it helped recruit an outside contender for the Senate race.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) said he was directing the Department of Public Safety “to investigate whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws.”
His announcement followed a New York Times report that said Peltola’s campaign appeared to have been involved in recruiting an independent candidate with a name similar to the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, in an effort to dilute support for him.
The independent, retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan, will appear on Alaska’s ballot as a Senate candidate along with Sen. Sullivan, Peltola, and another candidate.
“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.”
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 “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.
In a statement Wednesday, the DSCC denied involvement with Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign. They added that Republicans have “long history of recruiting and propping up candidates in an attempt to boost their own campaigns.”
President Donald Trump said earlier Wednesday at Joint Base Andrews that Peltola should leave the race. “I think she should be prosecuted criminally,” he said.
He had earlier said on social media that “Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot.”
A spokesperson for Alaskans for Mary, a group backing Peltola, said Wednesday the organization had no involvement with the campaign of either Dan Sullivan.
“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,” Peltola’s campaign said in a statement. It did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment following Dunleavy’s announcement.
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 5 points in the state, which Trump won by 13 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
Republicans have for months argued that Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy was a deliberate attempt by the Democrats to mislead Sen. Sullivan’s supports. In June, election officials in Alaska moved to remove him from the ballot, 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.
Dan J. Sullivan then advanced to the general election in the state’s August primary after receiving 2.5 percent of the vote.
Last week, the Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of the results if Sen. Dan S. 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 if 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.”
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