Alaska’s Republican governor has ordered an investigation into Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign over an alleged plot to plant a decoy candidate on the ballot, just days before Election Day.

Governor Mike Dunleavy said on Wednesday night that investigators would examine whether the campaign should face criminal charges or civil penalties. It comes after The New York Times revealed its role in recruiting a retiree named Dan J. Sullivan to run against Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan.

Dunleavy warned on X that duping voters into backing the wrong man is an attack on the heart of election integrity, and that anyone who broke the law will be held to account.

The probe came hours after Donald Trump demanded Peltola be thrown off the ballot and prosecuted, though he did not say what crime she had committed.

Trump branded the scheme ‘voter fraud at the highest level’ as he headed to a rally in Ohio, and called for the decoy Sullivan to be struck from the ballot too.

The so-called ‘Decoy Dan’ plot involved senior advisers to Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s main Senate campaign arm.

They tapped the retiree, who lives in a small Alaskan fishing village because he shares the senator’s first and last name.

Both Sullivans will appear on Tuesday’s ballot alongside Peltola and a fourth candidate, Gerald Heikes. 

Trump branded the scheme ‘voter fraud at the highest level’ as he headed to a rally in Ohio, and called for the decoy Sullivan to be struck from the ballot too

Dunleavy said on Wednesday night that investigators would examine whether the Peltola campaign should face criminal charges or civil penalties

This combination photo shows Trump-backed Republican Sen Dan Sullivan, left, in Palmer, Alaska, on August 17, 2026, and another candidate in Alaska’s Senate race named Dan Sullivan

A New York Times investigation found that staffers on Sullivan’s Democratic opponent Mary Peltola’s campaign recruited other Dan Sullivans to run in the election in an effort to boost her chances at winning

However, Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared to concede on Fox News on Wednesday that the scheme may not have broken any law, insisting only that it ought to.

The Justice Department had already sued last week at Trump’s direction, asking that the race not be certified if Senator Sullivan loses, though the suit alleged no specific illegal act.

It accuses Daniel J. Sullivan, who says he backed Democrats in the last three presidential elections and voted for Peltola in her 2022 and 2024 House races, of trying to fool Alaskans into thinking he is the senator.

Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of the US District Court in Alaska has put the case on a fast track, giving federal lawyers until Thursday afternoon to answer a motion to dismiss.

She also pointedly noted that the administration waited to sue until Alaskans had already started voting. It comes nearly four months after the state’s top court ordered Daniel J. Sullivan onto the ballot.

The Peltola campaign and the DSCC have asked to join the case, and on Wednesday the administration dropped its objection, citing the Times report as proof of a far-reaching scheme to deceive Alaskan voters with a phony candidate.

Peltola shrugged off the revelations at a rally on Wednesday, dismissing them as a distraction.

Senator Sullivan’s spokesman accused her campaign of spending months misleading Alaskans while denying the very scheme it was running.

The ‘decoy’s’ campaign website is pictured, referring to him as a Republican US Senate candidate

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said ballot-stacking has no place in elections and accused the campaign of lying to Alaskans and then covering it up.

Democrats have hit back by arguing that ballot-stacking is standard practice in American politics, and that Republicans have pulled the same trick in a string of states, including Alaska.

Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman Lauren French highlighted a GOP-linked super PAC that poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into propping up Democratic and Green Party candidates in Alaska’s Senate primary this year.