Sen. Ron Johnson is opening an investigation into the Alaska Senate race scandal that has roiled the state's ranked-choice election just days before voters head to the polls.
The Wisconsin Republican's probe targets allegations first reported by The Federalist that Democratic operatives tied to former Rep. Mary Peltola's campaign recruited a retired schoolteacher named Daniel J. Sullivan to appear on the ballot as a no-party candidate — a name nearly identical to two-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The Federalist reported Wednesday that Sen. Johnson is seeking records related to the recruitment and funding of the decoy candidate. In a statement, Johnson said that "if true, the alleged efforts described in the October 28, 2026 article, would amount to a disturbing effort to undermine the integrity of the 2026 U.S. Senate election in Alaska."
The Federalist's reporting was amplified on X by the outlet's official account, which posted a link to the story Wednesday: "Sen. Johnson Launches Probe Into Alaska's 'Decoy Dan' Senate Race Scandal."
Federal Probe Already Underway
Johnson's inquiry comes as the Justice Department's criminal investigation into the matter intensifies. Alaska U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman told reporters in Anchorage on Friday that the investigation has been ongoing for several months, but revelations from The New York Times that Peltola's campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan prompted a "significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska."
The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to order state elections officials to isolate ballots ranking Dan J. Sullivan, seeking to preserve them for an investigation into whether those rankings were the product of voter confusion. Assistant U.S. Attorney E. Bryan Wilson wrote in a filing that the government "seeks to preserve and segregate all ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan for the purposes of investigating whether such ranking was the product of voter confusion, should such an investigation become necessary."
The department also filed a list of proposed questions it wants to compel the Peltola campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to answer as part of a civil case seeking to block certification of the Senate race if the incumbent loses. Sources at the Justice Department told Fox News that the Trump administration had issued more than 30 subpoenas in a span of 24 hours.
An FBI agent has already visited at least one donor. The owner of a boat dealership in Petersburg — the decoy candidate's hometown — told The Associated Press that an agent wanted to know whether he had been misled by Dan J. Sullivan's candidacy. The donor said he had not been misled and that "everybody knows who the incumbent is."
'Decoy Dan' Scheme Alleged
At issue is whether the decoy Sullivan's candidacy was a deliberate effort to siphon votes from Sen. Sullivan under Alaska's ranked-choice voting system. The New York Times first reported that the DSCC and senior aides to Peltola's campaign allegedly worked to recruit candidates who could pull votes away from the Republican incumbent.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, appearing on Fox News, recalled the moment he suspected something was "not right" in the scheme. The Justice Department has characterized the matter as a potential conspiracy to defraud the voters of Alaska.
Critics on the left have accused the Trump administration of federal overreach, arguing the civil suit and criminal probe amount to an attempt to tip a close Senate race. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, dismissed that complaint, pointing to Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment of President Trump as precedent.
"The Justice Department has talked about a potential conspiracy to defraud the voters of Alaska and people are saying, 'Oh, he's got no case. That's a weak case,'" von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital. "Well, I suggest you do a Google search and pull up the indictment that Jack Smith got against Donald Trump in the District of Columbia. He set a precedent for this."
The race between Sen. Sullivan and Peltola is among a handful nationwide expected to determine control of the Senate. President Trump has said he told the Justice Department to file the suit.
Our Take
This is what accountability looks like. For years, the Left has treated election integrity as a punchline — a dirty phrase only deplorables use. Now we have a federal investigation, dozens of subpoenas, an FBI agent knocking on a donor's door, and a sitting U.S. senator opening his own probe into a scheme that, if the reporting holds up, was designed to trick Alaskans at the ballot box.
Notice the sequence. The New York Times — hardly a MAGA mouthpiece — reported that Peltola's camp and the DSCC allegedly recruited candidates to peel votes away from Sullivan. Only after that reporting did the Justice Department surge resources into Alaska. And notice the response from the Left: not denials of the scheme, but complaints that investigating it is unfair. They are not arguing the facts. They are arguing that the facts should not be examined.
Ranked-choice voting was sold to Alaskans as a reform that would make politics cleaner. Instead, it created the exact opening a decoy candidate needs. If you can't beat an incumbent, run someone with his name, hide behind a no-party label, and let confused voters do the rest. That's not democracy. That's a con.
Sen. Johnson's probe is a start, but Alaskans deserve answers before Tuesday — not after. Who recruited Daniel J. Sullivan? Who paid the lawyers? Who knew? And if the answers lead back to the DSCC and the Peltola campaign, every voter in America should understand that the party lecturing us about "protecting democracy" was allegedly running a scam against it.
The ballot box belongs to the people. Time to prove it.
