ع
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced late on October 29 that he had directed the Department of Public Safety to examine whether an alleged scheme to recruit a candidate sharing a name with incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan broke election laws and whether criminal charges or civil action should follow. The Republican governor cited a New York Times investigation published a day earlier that detailed efforts by operatives connected to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to enlist a retired teacher as a potential spoiler. Dunleavy wrote on X that the reporting provided disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by deliberately confusing voters and misdirecting their ballots. He added that the findings substantially support conclusions reached by the Alaska Division of Elections during a review completed in June.
The New York Times reported that Peltola’s former campaign manager Elisa Rios and other aides worked with a veteran Democratic operative named Jerid Kurtz to approach Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. about entering the race against the incumbent Sullivan. According to the newspaper, Rios told investigators that Peltola was aware of the recruitment drive although not directly involved in it. The Peltola campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have both rejected the allegations and stated they had no role in bringing the second Sullivan onto the ballot. The report emerged less than a week before Alaskans head to the polls in the closely contested Senate contest.
Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher and former U.S. Forest Service employee from Petersburg, has maintained that he is a legitimate candidate and not a plant. The Alaska Division of Elections had initially disqualified him after determining his candidacy was designed primarily to mislead voters, a finding the governor referenced as now bolstered by the latest reporting. A state judge and ultimately the Alaska Supreme Court overruled that disqualification, ruling that state law limits challenges to basic constitutional requirements such as age and residency rather than a candidate’s motives. The second Sullivan remains on the ballot alongside the incumbent and Peltola in the state’s ranked-choice voting system.
Dunleavy emphasized that Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they intend to support without deception. “Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” the governor wrote in his statement on X. “Anyone or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable.” The Department of Public Safety has been tasked with determining the facts and recommending next steps, though it was not immediately clear which specific statutes might apply to the alleged recruitment activities.
President Donald Trump responded to the New York Times account by labeling the effort voter fraud at the highest level and calling for Peltola to be removed from the ballot and prosecuted. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the state’s senior Republican senator, described the episode as part of a pattern of lies and cover-ups according to multiple news accounts of her reaction. The controversy has drawn national attention to Alaska’s Senate race, one of several competitive contests that could influence control of the chamber after the November 3 vote. Both the Peltola campaign and Democratic officials have continued to deny any coordination with the second Sullivan.
The episode revives questions about the boundaries of candidate recruitment in Alaska, where ranked-choice voting has been used since 2022 to determine outcomes by redistributing votes from eliminated contenders. Aides to the incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan had previously raised concerns about the namesake candidacy during the Division of Elections review earlier this year. Dunleavy, who has consistently backed Sullivan’s reelection bid, indicated that the evidence uncovered by investigators will dictate whether further legal measures are pursued against any individuals or organizations involved.
