Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has ordered a state investigation — the Alaska Ballot Probe — into the alleged recruitment of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan in Alaska's fiercely contested US Senate race, five days before voters go to the polls on November 3, 2026. The Republican governor announced late on Wednesday, October 29, that he was directing the Alaska Department of Public Safety to examine whether the scheme broke state law, and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted.
The Alaska ballot probe began with a social media post from the governor on Wednesday evening, Alaska time. Dunleavy wrote that the New York Times reporting had revealed what he called an organised effort to manipulate Alaska's elections by recruiting candidates, including one with the same name as an incumbent US senator, in order to confuse voters and misdirect their votes.
"I am therefore directing the Department of Public Safety to investigate whether this scheme violated Alaska's laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted," Dunleavy wrote. "The evidence will determine what happens next."
He added: "Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support. Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections. Anyone or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable."
Dunleavy said the new reporting substantially supported findings made earlier this year by the Alaska Division of Elections, which had investigated the same concerns in June. The governor's announcement came hours after President Donald Trump demanded that Peltola be removed from the ballot and face prosecution, calling the episode election fraud at the highest level.
The order does not, by itself, remove anyone from the ballot, and it does not allege a specific criminal offence. It asks state investigators to determine whether any Alaska law was broken — a question that, as the New York Post noted, was not immediately clear, because the tactic known as ballot-stacking is legal in Alaska even when critics consider it ethically dubious.
Alaska's Senate race pits incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan against Democrat Mary Peltola, a former US House member, alongside two other candidates on a four-person general election ballot: Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg, and Gerald Heikes. Under Alaska's system, the top four finishers in the primary advance to the general election, where voters rank candidates in order of preference. A winner must finish with more than 50 percent of the vote after rankings are redistributed.
The controversy centres on how Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. came to be a candidate at all. According to the New York Times report published on Wednesday, October 28, Democratic operative Jerid Kurtz worked with people connected to Peltola's campaign and to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to encourage the retired teacher to run. The report, based on text messages and interviews with 12 people, said Kurtz told Peltola aides earlier in 2026 that the teacher "hated Trump" and was willing to mount a spoiler campaign "if it was going to help Mary."
The report also described messages in which Peltola's then-chief of staff, Anton McParland, worried that Kurtz was being too conspicuous, prompting the DSCC's director of campaigns, Andrew Piatt, to reply: "We will check in." Another former campaign figure, ex-campaign manager Elisa Rios, recalled Kurtz describing the use of pseudonyms and cover stories to throw potential Republican monitors off his trail. Rios also told the Times that Peltola was "definitely aware" of the ballot-stacking effort, but not actively involved — a distinction that has become central to the political argument.
Kurtz also approached other past Alaska candidates, the Times reported. Former House candidate Matthew Salisbury, of Anchorage, confirmed that Kurtz contacted him in December 2025 about a possible Senate run, after a call from an unfamiliar number with an Ohio area code and a meeting in a pub. "I'm not naïve," Salisbury told the paper. "I had to have that general idea that they're not in it for me."
Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. has insisted he entered the race of his own volition and describes himself as a moderate Republican. The Times reported earlier in 2026 that he had taken part in anti-Trump "No Kings" protests, supported Peltola in both her House bids in 2022 and 2024, and kept a magnet depicting revolutionary Che Guevara on his refrigerator — details his critics cite as evidence of his sympathies, and his supporters dismiss as irrelevant to his right to run.
The dispute first reached the courts in June. Alaska's Division of Elections removed Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the primary ballot, finding that a preponderance of the evidence showed his name and Republican party affiliation were chosen to potentially confuse voters. Days later, the Alaska Supreme Court ordered him put back on the ballot, finding that state law did not require candidates to run in good faith, and directing election officials to take less drastic steps to tell the two Sullivans apart. On the general election ballot, the incumbent is listed as the Republican incumbent, while the other Sullivan appears as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation given.
In the primary, the two leading candidates advanced comfortably, while Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and Heikes each received less than 3 percent of the vote — enough, under Alaska's top-four system, to reach the general election ballot. An earlier Data for Progress poll conducted October 8 to 16 put Peltola at 47 percent, Senator Sullivan at 44 percent, and the second Sullivan at 4 percent, underlining why even a small share of confused or protest votes could matter in a close race.
The Alaska ballot probe raises a question that Alaska law has never cleanly answered: where does hardball campaigning end and unlawful election interference begin? Recruiting candidates to split an opponent's vote is an old American tactic, practised by both parties in different states and cycles. What makes this case unusual is the identical name — a feature that, critics argue, moves the tactic from splitting a vote to misleading a voter.
That distinction is why the June court fight mattered so much. Election officials concluded the name and party label were chosen to confuse; the state Supreme Court concluded that motive, however questionable, was not itself a legal disqualification. Dunleavy's new investigation will have to find something more than motive — a specific statute, a false statement, or a fraudulent filing — if it is to lead to charges. Until investigators report back, the probe's most immediate effect is political: it keeps the story at the centre of the final days of the campaign, with early voting already under way.
The timing also matters for a second reason. The US Department of Justice has already filed a lawsuit seeking to halt certification of a Peltola victory if votes for the second Sullivan could have changed the result. Peltola and the DSCC have asked a federal judge to dismiss that case. A state criminal investigation running in parallel, launched by a Republican governor five days before the election, will inevitably be read by both sides through a partisan lens — as accountability by supporters, and as interference by critics.
President Trump was the loudest voice before the governor acted. On Truth Social on Wednesday, he wrote: "I don't think Mary Peltola, after perpetrating such a terrible scheme, should be allowed to run, because this is ELECTION FRAUD. The Democrats cheated! They found a man named Dan Sullivan, put him on the Ballot, then lied to the Court, and said they didn't know anything about it. That's perjury. She shouldn't be allowed to run, and neither should the FAKE Dan Sullivan!" In a separate video message, Trump said: "It's cheating. It's a spoiler candidate to go on the ballot with the exact same name as your great Senator Dan Sullivan. This guy's name is Dan Sullivan. He was just put there by the Democrats to confuse the voters, and it's very unfair."
Senator Sullivan, appearing on Fox News on Wednesday night, urged his rival to answer directly. He said Peltola should "come clean" about whatever role she played in the plan, and said Alaskans should "look Mary Peltola in the eye and ask her, 'Did you cheat?' She won't even answer that question."
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's other Republican senator, backed that call. She said Alaskans "deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign — what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials."
Peltola herself dismissed the report at a campaign stop in Soldotna on Wednesday, calling it a "distraction" from issues such as the cost of living and Senator Sullivan's support for the war against Iran. "This is all stuff to sell newspapers," she said. "This is all stuff to get subscriptions."
Her campaign issued a firmer denial in writing: "The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign. Like Mary, our campaign is focused on lowering costs and fixing the rigged system in DC." The DSCC likewise said on Wednesday that it "is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan." DSCC spokeswoman Monica Robinson pointed to Republican tactics in other races, saying: "Republicans have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates in an attempt to boost their own campaigns — including recruiting a prisoner with a New York address to run against Mary Peltola and spending nearly half a million dollars to secure a spot on the ballot in Alaska for an Arizona resident in the Senate race this cycle."
Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, had earlier called the matter "much ado about nothing," a view that captures the Democratic argument: that voters can tell the candidates apart, that the second Sullivan won his place fairly under the top-four system, and that the uproar is a late-campaign attempt to delegitimise a close race.
The Alaska ballot probe matters for three reasons. First, the Senate seat itself could help decide control of the chamber. Alaska is one of a handful of genuinely competitive Senate races in 2026, and a Peltola victory in a state that usually votes Republican would reshape the Senate map. Second, the case tests the limits of Alaska's distinctive election system. Ranked-choice voting and the top-four primary were designed to reward broad appeal and reduce negative partisanship; a same-name spoiler is, in effect, a stress test of whether that design can survive deliberate gaming.
Third, the probe lands in a national climate already thick with election litigation. The Justice Department's certification lawsuit, the governor's criminal investigation, and the president's calls to remove a candidate from the ballot are all unfolding before a single vote has been finally counted. How Alaska's institutions handle them — courts, election officials, and now state investigators — will be watched far beyond the state as a precedent for how same-name and spoiler disputes are treated in future cycles.
For voters, the practical point is simpler. More than 61,000 Alaskans had already cast ballots by Tuesday, according to Associated Press data cited in the New York Post report. Those voters cannot take their ballots back because of a Wednesday night announcement. What the probe can still change is the conversation in the final five days — and, potentially, the legal aftermath if the result is close enough for any side to challenge it.
The Department of Public Safety investigation has no published timetable, and no charges have been announced. Investigators will presumably review the Times reporting, the Division of Elections' June findings, and any documents or communications connected to the recruitment effort, and determine whether any Alaska statute was violated. Any criminal referral would need to survive the same legal hurdle that defeated the June removal attempt: showing not just an ethically questionable tactic, but a specific unlawful act.
Meanwhile, the campaign continues. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Under ranked-choice voting, if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of first-preference votes, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated and their supporters' next preferences are redistributed until someone passes the threshold. The Justice Department's certification lawsuit remains pending in federal court, and Peltola's motion to dismiss it has yet to be decided. Expect both campaigns to use the final days to frame the probe: Republicans as proof of a rigged process, Democrats as proof of a desperate attempt to overturn a race they fear losing.
Whatever the investigation finds, one outcome is already certain: Alaska's 2026 Senate race will be remembered as much for the name on the ballot as for the policies debated on the campaign trail.
Governor Mike Dunleavy directed the Alaska Department of Public Safety to investigate whether an alleged scheme to recruit a second Dan Sullivan onto the Senate ballot violated Alaska law, and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted. No charges have been filed.
Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg, Alaska, who appears on the general election ballot alongside incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola. He insists he ran of his own volition; critics say he was recruited as a spoiler.
Peltola's campaign says it has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign, and the DSCC says it is not involved with Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. Peltola has called the New York Times report a distraction from issues like the cost of living.
Not clearly, under Alaska law as interpreted so far. The Alaska Supreme Court restored Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. to the ballot in June, finding state law did not require candidates to run in good faith. The new investigation must identify a specific unlawful act to lead to charges.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Alaska voters rank candidates; if nobody wins more than 50 percent outright, the lowest candidate is eliminated and votes are redistributed until someone passes 50 percent.
Related coverage: Trump Demands Peltola Off Alaska Ballot in Fake Dan Sullivan Fraud Row, Alaska Senate Lawsuit: DOJ Wants Certification Blocked if Sullivan Loses, and Murkowski Endorses Democrat Kreiss-Tomkins in Alaska Governor Race.
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