Alaska Governor Orders Criminal Probe into Peltola Campaign Recruiting Tactic
State officials are investigating whether a retired man named Dan J. Sullivan was deliberately placed on the ballot to confuse voters in the upcoming Senate race.
By Austin Reed ·
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has ordered a criminal and civil investigation into the Senate campaign of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola. The probe will determine if the campaign committed a crime by recruiting a specific voter to appear on the general election ballot.
The dispute centers on the presence of Dan J. Sullivan, a retired resident of a small fishing town, on the November 2026 ballot. He shares his first and last name with incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan. Peltola's strategists and the Democratic National Committee's Senate arm reportedly recruited Dan J. Sullivan to sit on the ballot alongside the incumbent, Peltola, and fourth candidate Gerald Heikes.
The objective of the placement was to induce confusion among voters, potentially splitting the conservative vote. The New York Times first revealed the strategy, which quickly escalated into a federal controversy involving the White House and the Department of Justice.
Governor Dunleavy stated that deliberately misleading voters undermines the integrity of elections. He said any person or organization that broke the law must answer for it. President Donald Trump labeled the move "electoral fraud of the highest level." He publicly demanded that Peltola withdraw her candidacy and face criminal prosecution.
Legal experts suggest that securing a criminal conviction will be difficult. Earlier this year, Alaska state officials attempted to remove Dan J. Sullivan from the ballot. The state Supreme Court ruled that neither Alaska law nor the federal Constitution allows authorities to judge the motives behind a citizen's candidacy.
The Trump administration has filed a preventive lawsuit seeking to prevent the certification of the election if Senator Dan S. Sullivan loses. District Judge Sharon Gleason agreed to accelerate the case at the request of the Alaska Elections Division. However, she noted that the government waited four months after the state court ruling to file suit, by which time citizens had already begun voting by mail.
Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged the legal limitations of the case in an interview with Fox News. He said such tactics "should be illegal," rather than confirming they are currently defined as a criminal offense.
Democratic officials have downplayed the incident. Mary Peltola called the episode "just another distraction" at a recent rally. Party strategists noted that using secondary candidates is a common tactic in American politics. They cited past instances where conservative super PACs supported Green Party candidates in Alaska or where Republicans kept a jailed Democratic candidate on the ballot in New York in 2024.
Republican spokespeople for Senator Dan S. Sullivan accused the Peltola campaign of manipulating Alaskans for months while denying the plan. Moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who previously supported Peltola, joined the criticism. She stated that vote manipulation has no place in the electoral process.
Scott Kendall, an Anchorage attorney who helped design Alaska's voting system, noted that the state's ranked-choice voting system may mitigate the impact of the confusion. If Republican voters rank both candidates named Dan Sullivan in their preferences, their votes will likely transfer and count in favor of the incumbent senator.
