The Republican governor of Alaska has ordered an investigation into an alleged “scheme” which led to two Dan Sullivans standing in the state’s US Senate race.
Governor Mike Dunleavy said he was responding to a New York Times (NYT) story, external which said the team of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola worked with people who tried to recruit spoiler candidates in the Senate race.
The governor’s post on X said he would investigate “whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws”. He did not say which laws he had in mind.
Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican senator running for re-election, and allies have accused the Democrats of trying to confuse voters. Peltola’s team deny any wrongdoing.
They say they did not encourage the second Dan Sullivan, a retired teacher who lives in a remote fishing village, to stand. He has denied any links with the Peltola campaign.
The Alaska race is considered by analysts to be one of the tightest of the upcoming US midterm elections, which will decide which party controls Congress. Americans head to the polls across the country on Tuesday.
Dunleavy’s statement, which did not name the Peltola campaign, said the NYT reporting had supported findings by the state Division of Elections earlier this year.
“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,” he wrote. “The evidence will determine what happens next.”
The NYT report alleged that people connected to Peltola’s campaign, as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), worked to try to recruit Sullivan the schoolteacher to stand in the Senate race.
This was part of a broader effort to encourage other would-be “spoiler” candidates to enter the race and dilute the support of the sitting Republican senator, the newspaper reported.
The paper said it had seen text messages and interviewed 12 people who participated in or were told of the plan, or were would-be candidates who the team tried to recruit. The BBC has not independently verified the NYT’s reporting.
The DSCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dunleavy’s investigation.
The ballot paper is set to list the two men as Dan S Sullivan, who will be described as the incumbent Republican senator, and Daniel J Sullivan Jr.
Senator Dan Sullivan told Fox News on Wednesday night that Peltola should “come clean” and described it as a scandal of the highest order.
His fellow Republican senator in Alaska, Lisa Murkowksi, accused the Democratic campaign of engaging in a “pattern of lies”. President Donald Trump has called for Peltola to be barred.
Previous efforts by the Republicans to remove the non-incumbent Sullivan from the ballot have already been rejected by the Alaska Supreme Court which found no state laws had been broken by him running in the race.
Though officials at the state and federal level have called for investigations in the wake of the New York Times reporting, election law experts said it was unlikely to dislodge the second Dan Sullivan from the ballot and it was unclear at this point if any state laws had been violated.
“It turns out that convincing somebody to run for office is not a crime, even if their name happens to be the same as an incumbent,” said Justin Levitt, an election law expert at Loyola Law School and a former justice department official.
The non-incumbent Sullivan had a constitutional right to run and have his name on the ballot, added Ruth Greenwood, an election expert at Harvard Law School.
The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit last week aimed at preventing the certification of the result if the Trump-backed Sullivan loses, arguing that the presence of both of them on the ballot could confuse voters.
Some legal experts expressed scepticism of the merits of the lawsuit, and their chances of success given Alaska’s courts had already allowed the second Sullivan to remain on the ballot.
The actual legal arguments the justice department made were a “frivolous theory,” Rick Pildes, an election law expert at New York University, told the BBC.
He noted the lawsuit did not cite a specific provision that the government wanted to enforce, merely a general preamble taken from a sweeping US voting law.
Alaska election officials asked a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit “because the complaint has no legal basis”.
The justice department has pledged continued action in the wake of the New York Times’ reporting.
“They are cheating, let’s call it what it is,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Fox News on Wednesday.
In a series of Truth Social posts, Trump too pointed to the report and made a variety of allegations against Peltola, who he argued should be removed from the ballot. He repeated his endorsement for Dan S Sullivan, the incumbent Republican senator, writing: “Dan is a GREAT man, has ALWAYS delivered for Alaska.”
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means that voters could select both Sullivans if they are unsure at the ballot box.
The battle threatens to delay the full picture of nationwide results following the midterm elections. The ultimate question of which party controls Congress will have a significant bearing on the remaining two years of Trump’s presidency.
A statement from an Alaskans for Mary spokesperson, written prior to Dunleavy’s call for an investigation, said: “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.
“The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign.”
In a statement given to US media, the DSCC likewise denied that it had been involved in any such scheme.
Peltola earlier this week paused campaigning activities in order to recover after she and her family sustained “minor injuries” in a car crash.
