Alaska governor orders investigation into 'look-alike candidate' case in Senate election

Investigation ordered by the governor

Alaska's Republican governor, Mike Dunleavy, has ordered a review of claims that the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola brought into the race a person with the same name as her Republican rival in order to siphon off some of his votes. Late Wednesday evening, he wrote on X that he was directing the Department of Public Safety to determine whether the scheme violated Alaska law and whether criminal charges or a civil lawsuit were warranted. According to him, an attempt to 'deliberately confuse voters and redirect their votes' undermines the integrity of elections. The New York Times was the first to report on the 'spoiler candidate.'

What is known about the 'look-alike'

According to The New York Times, Peltola's aides secretly recruited 'spoilers,' including Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from a remote fishing community in Alaska who shares a surname with the sitting Republican senator Dan Sullivan. The teacher himself said he was running of his own accord. Peltola's former campaign manager, Eliza Rios, told the Times that the candidate 'definitely knew' about the project but was not directly involved in it. The newspaper notes, however, that recruiting candidates to split an opponent's vote — a practice known as ballot stacking — is generally legal and has been used by both parties in Alaska; the Times investigation found no criminal violations.

Court battle and Trump's position

The revelations came days after President Donald Trump directed the Justice Department to sue Alaska over the presence of the second Sullivan on the ballot. The lawsuit demands postponing certification of the results if Peltola defeats the sitting senator by a narrow margin and votes cast for his namesake could have changed the outcome. On Wednesday, Trump demanded that Peltola and the 'FAKE Dan Sullivan' be removed from next week's ballot and prosecuted, calling the situation 'voter fraud of the highest order.' Back in June, however, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the retired teacher's right to run, rejecting Republican attempts to remove him from the ballot. The state, for its part, asked a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department's lawsuit as lacking legal grounds.