Republican Governor of Alaska Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into the campaign of Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola. The probe examines whether the campaign recruited candidates to divert votes from the incumbent Republican, according to The Guardian.
The investigation follows a report by the New York Times. The report alleges that Peltola's campaign was involved in recruiting retiree Dan J. Sullivan to run against Senator Dan S. Sullivan. According to the report, campaign officials worked with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to find other people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska and encouraged them to run. The reporting is based on interviews with Peltola's former campaign manager and other sources, as well as documents and text messages.
Dunleavy wrote on X: "Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections." He added: "Anyone or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable." Peltola's campaign denied involvement with the other Dan Sullivan.
Republicans have condemned the presence of two candidates named Dan Sullivan in the race. One is a two-term US senator, while the other is a retiree living in southeast Alaska with limited political experience. They called the new candidate a Democratic smokescreen to harm the incumbent by splitting his supporters.
Lisa Murkowski, the senior Republican senator from Alaska, condemned Mary Peltola's effort to divert votes from her opponent Dan Sullivan by recruiting a candidate with the same name. "While some may try to write this off as just how politics works now, ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process," she wrote. "Run and win on your merits: your views, your policy ideas, and your accomplishments." Murkowski is a moderate Republican who has repeatedly broken with Trump, and yesterday she endorsed the Democratic candidate in the state's gubernatorial race. She did not support Donald Trump's calls to disqualify Peltola from the ballot or criminally investigate her.
The text states: "By contrast, recruiting candidates to manipulate the field and influence voting outcomes is simply wrong. 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."
Meanwhile, following a rally in Ohio yesterday, Donald Trump will head east to Rock Hill in South Carolina to support the unexpectedly threatened Republican incumbent in a deeply red state. Senator Darline Graham, sister of the late South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, was appointed to finish her brother's term following his death earlier this year. Darline Graham is running for a full term but has found herself in a tight race against Democratic candidate Annie Andrews. South Carolina is the latest in a series of typical Republican strongholds that Trump has visited in the weeks before the mid-term elections, as the GOP fears losing races it had usually considered safe wins.
