Dunleavy Launches Senate Campaign Inquiry

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered an investigation into the U.S. Senate campaign of Democratic challenger Mary Peltola on Wednesday. The probe targets allegations that her team recruited a candidate sharing the name of incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan to split the vote.

Dunleavy posted the order on social media overnight. He cited reporting from The New York Times that described an organized effort to manipulate the election. The governor stated that recruiting a candidate with the same name as an incumbent was designed to confuse voters and misdirect their ballots.

"Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections," Dunleavy wrote. He added that the new evidence supports earlier findings by the state elections board.

President Donald Trump called for the criminal prosecution of Peltola and her campaign on Tuesday. The Republican president had previously directed the Department of Justice to sue to block the certification of the election results if Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. remained on the ballot.

Peltola, a former congresswoman, responded to the controversy during a campaign stop in Soldotna on Wednesday. She described the news report as a distraction from key issues, specifically Senator Sullivan's support of the war in Iran.

"This is just another distraction. It's another diversion," Peltola said in a video posted online. "This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions."

The legal dispute began when a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. ineligible for the primary ballot. The official concluded his candidacy was filed to compromise the ballot's fairness. The Alaska Supreme Court later reversed that ruling, allowing the retired schoolteacher from Petersburg to run. Sullivan has denied any contact with Peltola's team, describing their connection as zero.