Alaska Governor Sends Police After 'Decoy Dan' Scheme Tied to Peltola. Faking a Candidate Oath Is a Felony

Alaska's Republican governor has turned the "Decoy Dan" story into a police matter. Late Wednesday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered the state Department of Public Safety, the agency over the Alaska State Troopers, to investigate whether the effort to put a second Dan Sullivan on the Senate ballot broke state law.

"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."

Update, Oct. 29: Dunleavy told Fox News the second Sullivan would not answer the state's questions under oath. Read the new report.

He moved hours after The New York Times reported that aides to Democrat Mary Peltola, who is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, worked with national Democratic Senate staff on a "ballot composition project" to recruit spoiler candidates, including a retired Petersburg teacher named Dan J. Sullivan (our report on what the Times found). Peltola's campaign denies recruiting anyone. Election Day is Tuesday.

'Deliberately tricking voters'

Dunleavy's full statement leans on one word: deliberate. "Today's New York Times reporting reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska's elections by recruiting candidates, including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator, to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes," he wrote.

"Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support," he added. "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."

Note the phrase "any organization." The Times story doesn't stop at Peltola's campaign. It names staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party's national Senate arm, and an Ohio operative who the paper says pitched would-be candidates under a fake name.

The state saw it coming in June

The governor's key line is this one: "The Alaska Division of Elections investigated these very concerns in June of this year. The new reporting substantially supports the Division's findings."

Those findings are on paper. In a June 15 letter, elections director Carol Beecher struck Dan J. Sullivan from the primary ballot and laid out why, after he skipped his chance to answer the complaints. Four facts, she wrote, "taken together" told the story:

The name. He is registered to vote as "Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr." and had never used "Dan Sullivan" with the division until he filed for Senate. He first emailed asking to be listed as "Dan S. Sullivan." The S is the senator's middle initial, not his.

The party. He switched to the Republican Party, which he had never joined in Alaska, two days before he filed.

The website. His campaign site used "a format, color scheme and overall theme" like the senator's, which Beecher called apparently "deliberate."

The consultant. A political consultant working for him was "a known longtime supporter of Democratic candidates," including the senator's main Democratic challenger.

Her conclusion: his sworn declaration was filed "with the purpose of confusing or misleading the electorate." She called the facts "utterly unprecedented."

Why the courts let him run anyway

Beecher lost in court. A state judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan back on the ballot on June 26, and the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed three days later, telling the division to work out how to list the two men "within the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law." Its full opinion is still to come. The court's ruling meant one thing: the state can't strike a candidate over his motives.

That's the part most coverage blurs. Being allowed on the ballot is not the same as being cleared. The court ruled on who gets listed. Dunleavy is asking a different question: did anyone break the law to get him there?

The law investigators may weigh

Alaska's declaration of candidacy isn't a casual form. State law says it must be "executed under oath" before an official, and Beecher's letter notes he swore that he "declare[s] myself to be a candidate for the office of United States Senator."

Alaska's election code makes it a class C felony to "intentionally" swear falsely "under an oath required by this title." That's AS 15.56.040, voter misconduct in the first degree. The bar is high. In a 2026 case, Alaska's Court of Appeals held that prosecutors must prove "a consciousness of wrongdoing" in deliberately making a false sworn statement.

Nobody has been charged, and the governor's order doesn't accuse anyone by name. Think of it like a sworn job application for a job you never meant to take: the question for investigators is whether the paper was a lie, and who knew.

Recruiting a candidate to split the other side's vote, known as ballot stacking, is generally legal, as the Times itself noted. The open question is everything around it, starting with that oath and with months of denials.

Trump: 'Nothing else will do'

President Trump went further hours before Dunleavy acted. "It was just determined that the Dumocrats in Alaska, despite their sworn statements to the contrary, put a man named Dan Sullivan on the Ballot in order to confuse the Public with respect to Highly Esteemed Senator Dan Sullivan," he wrote. "This is Voter Fraud at the Highest Level, and the Dumocrat Candidate, who was involved in the scheme, Mary Peltola, should be removed from the Ballot and prosecuted. So should the FAKE Dan Sullivan. Nothing else will do!"

Peltola's campaign has told the Times it "has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign and did not recruit any candidates into the race." Dan J. Sullivan says he entered on his own. The Times reports that Peltola's former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, said Peltola was "definitely aware" of the effort.

What happens next

Three tracks are now running at once. State investigators work Dunleavy's probe. In federal court in Anchorage, the Justice Department's suit asks Judge Sharon Gleason to let Alaska hold off certifying the race if the senator loses by fewer votes than the other Sullivan gets, and the Alaska Beacon reports the department now wants Peltola's campaign in the case so it can "seek expedited discovery from the campaign regarding the reported conspiracy." And on Tuesday, voters decide.

Alaska ranks its general-election candidates. On the ballot, the senator is "Sullivan, Dan S." Check the middle initial.