Federal campaign finance law may have been broken in Alaska’s alleged scheme to place a name-twin spoiler candidate against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in this year’s Senate race, a top legal authority says.
Former Federal Election Commission Chair Hans von Spakovsky flagged the potential exposure to Fox News Digital, warning that undisclosed in-kind services provided to a candidate’s campaign constitute a reportable contribution under federal law.
“Failure to disclose such services is a violation of federal law,” von Spakovsky said, adding that exceeding contribution limits or acting with intent could elevate the matter from a civil infraction to a criminal offense.
The scheme under scrutiny involves a retired Petersburg schoolteacher, also named Dan Sullivan, whom operatives connected to Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola allegedly recruited to run alongside the incumbent senator.
New York Times reporting that surfaced days before Election Day revealed that those operatives had searched more broadly across Alaska for individuals sharing the senator’s name who might enter the race as spoilers.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy confirmed his administration launched a fresh investigation after that reporting emerged, saying state officials had not been aware of those details when they first challenged the Petersburg Sullivan’s candidacy last summer.
The Petersburg Sullivan had initially sought to list his name on the ballot as “Daniel S. Sullivan,” a middle initial that belongs to the incumbent senator, not to him, and his campaign website bore a close resemblance to the senator’s own.
The state pursued the matter through the courts, but the Alaska Supreme Court ultimately ruled that both men’s names would appear on the general election ballot, with the incumbent distinguished by the label “incumbent.”
Von Spakovsky pointed to a precedent from the 2016 presidential race, in which the FEC determined that assistance provided to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign by Australian Labor Party members constituted a prohibited foreign in-kind contribution valued at $24,422, with both Sanders’ campaign and the Australian Labor Party each paying $14,500 in civil penalties to settle without admitting liability.
Dunleavy argued the entire controversy was made structurally possible by Alaska’s relatively recent election system, under which the top four finishers in a nonpartisan primary advance to a general election decided by ranked-choice voting.
“This would have never happened if we didn’t have ranked-choice voting,” Dunleavy told Fox News Digital, arguing that under a traditional party primary the Petersburg Sullivan would never have reached November’s ballot.
The governor did not mince words about the overall picture the new reporting painted, saying: “There’s a lot more smoke and a lot of fishy smell after this article came out.”
Peltola’s campaign has denied any involvement with either Sullivan campaign, and Peltola herself dismissed the matter as a distraction during a recent campaign appearance, even as the Times reported operatives tied to her campaign participated in recruitment efforts.
Because Alaska election administration falls under the lieutenant governor’s office rather than the governor’s, Fox News Digital reached out to Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, whose office is deep in the mechanics of managing early voting as the controversy unfolds.
Dunleavy said his office’s role centers on ensuring laws are executed properly, and he vowed the investigation would run as long as required, cautioning that the alleged tactic could become a template for future electoral manipulation if left unexamined.
