Alaska’s governor orders inquiry into Senate candidate recruitment
Mike Dunleavy directs state investigators to examine possible election-law violations, adding a separate inquiry to a federal lawsuit seeking a conditional delay in certifying the Senate result.
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Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said he was directing the state’s Department of Public Safety to investigate whether alleged efforts to recruit candidates for the US Senate race violated Alaska law. The order adds a state investigation to an existing federal lawsuit over certification, the official confirmation of the election result.
Dunleavy said the Alaska Division of Elections had investigated the same concerns in June 2026. He described new reporting about candidate recruitment as substantially supporting the division’s findings.
Two Sullivan candidates and a disputed recruitment effort
The ballot includes incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher listed without party affiliation. The contest uses ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank candidates by preference.
The New York Times alleged, in reporting quoted by Fox News, that Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s team worked with people trying to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and other candidates to dilute the incumbent’s support and help Peltola win.
Peltola’s campaign denied the allegation in a statement to the Times, saying Alaskans for Mary had no involvement with either Sullivan campaign and had not recruited any candidates into the race.
A separate lawsuit seeks a conditional certification delay
The US Department of Justice filed its federal lawsuit on October 22. It seeks to delay certification if Senator Dan S. Sullivan loses and votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan could have changed the result, pending an investigation into whether voters mistakenly selected the wrong candidate.
That lawsuit requests a delay; it is not a court ruling granting one. Dunleavy’s separate order calls for an investigation, not a finding of wrongdoing. He said the state inquiry would examine whether criminal charges or civil action were warranted, with the evidence determining what happens next.
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