Petersburg donors describe support and doubts about Dan J. Sullivan's campaign

Wood ties contribution to decade-long fight against logging

Retired fisherman Ed Wood said he wrote a $1,000 check to Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign to repay the support Sullivan and his wife gave him during a costly, decade-long battle to block the state from logging a forested hillside above Petersburg. It was one of several contributions from residents whose accounts of Sullivan ranged from admiration for his teaching to doubts about why he entered the race.

More than a dozen Petersburg residents told The Associated Press they liked and admired Dan J. Sullivan, calling him a creative teacher who ran the Little Kids Rock after-school program to teach guitar. Petersburg is a fishing community of 3,000 known as “Little Norway” for its late 19th-century settlers. The Associated Press described it as the type of small town where everyone seems to know everyone else’s business and said the controversy had brought the town into the center of a federal investigation and a crush of media attention.

Sharon Hunter and her husband donated $1,000 to Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign. FBI agents knocked on her door Saturday during a round of interviews with the campaign’s dozen contributors. “It just seems like such a waste of our taxpayer money,” Hunter said. “I’m a bit incredulous about their whole angle,” she added, “because they’re targeting a person who’s been a real contributor in this community.”

Anna Holmes and her husband contributed $500 and said they were surprised when FBI agents showed up Friday night. Holmes said agents told the couple they were investigating “campaign finance” violations and asked whether they had intended to contribute to the incumbent senator’s campaign. “I told the agent I would not have done that,” Holmes said.

Another donor, retired boat seller Charles Flint, described Sullivan as a “liberal thinker” who sometimes voted for Republicans. Flint’s yard sign outside his coastal home read “Mary for U.S. Senate.” He said Dan J. Sullivan never told him why he entered the race. “He probably viewed himself more as a spoiler than a legitimate long shot,” Flint said. “I’m sure he’s probably thinking now, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done this.’”

Not everyone in Petersburg defended Sullivan. Amanda Ohmer, a bartender at the local Moose Lodge, said she was shocked when her son’s former teacher entered the Senate race in May as a Republican, three days after Peltola visited Petersburg on a campaign stop. Ohmer said she believed he was a well-known liberal and attended an anti-Trump protest in town. “You don’t see a Republican at a No Kings protest,” she said.

Ohmer said she supported the federal investigation but was irked by friends who had rallied around Dan J. Sullivan. “It’s sleazy,” Ohmer said. “Just because Republicans do it, too, doesn’t make it right.”

FBI agents had visited Petersburg in recent days as federal authorities expanded a monthslong criminal probe into allegations that Democratic campaigners sought to recruit candidates to run against the incumbent senator. Most of Dan J. Sullivan’s donors live in Petersburg and together contributed $7,150 to his campaign. Those questioned said agents asked whether they had felt deceived by the lesser-known Sullivan. The Associated Press said the strategy may have begun as an attempt to draw votes from the incumbent and hurt his reelection prospects; the Trump administration was weighing criminal charges over the tactic known as “ballot stacking.”

At a lively Halloween party at Kito’s Kave, a local dive, one patron poked fun at the surge of interest by dressing as an FBI agent. Another wore a “Petersburg Election Scandal” prison placard around her neck. The charge read: “Being a Registered Voter in Alaska.”

Dan J. Sullivan had not been seen for weeks, and his rustic home stood dark a day after FBI agents visited friends who had donated to his campaign. The Associated Press described the campaign to unseat the Republican senator with the same first and last name as quixotic. The only political display at the home was a League of Women Voters yard sign reading, “Stand Up for Democracy: Vote 2026.”

The Associated Press’s efforts to reach Dan J. Sullivan since the New York Times article had been unsuccessful, and several donors said they had not spoken with him in quite some time. Friends said they were certain he never expected to generate so much attention, let alone from federal law enforcement.

Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan was seeking to use the controversy in his bid for a third term. On Saturday night, he told trick-or-treaters, “My costume is the real Dan Sullivan – not the fake guy.” Democrat Mary Peltola, a former U.S. representative, was mounting a serious challenge in a race that could determine control of the Senate.

Recruiting candidates to draw votes away from an opponent has been part of Alaska’s politics for years, but the state’s open primary and ranked-choice voting systems make it easier for lesser-known candidates to play spoilers when no contender secures a majority. The tactic has drawn fresh scrutiny as the incumbent fights off Peltola’s challenge.

Dan J. Sullivan’s entry into the race had drawn scrutiny since June, when the Alaska Division of Elections tried to remove him from the primary ballot, determining that he had not filed his candidacy as a Republican in “good faith.” State courts overturned that finding, and state officials identify Dan S. Sullivan on the ballot as the Republican incumbent.

Dan J. Sullivan repeatedly said he entered the race on his own accord and had no contact with Peltola’s campaign — “zero, none, zilch,” he told The Associated Press in June. He answered “no” when asked whether any Democratic operatives had contacted him to run. “This is my choice,” he said at the time.

Peltola denied any role in recruiting candidates as she distanced herself from a New York Times article published the previous week. The article linked a group backing the former congresswoman to a Democratic operative trying to recruit candidates to draw votes away from the incumbent. At a rally in Anchorage the previous week, Peltola told supporters, “This is Alaska. We’re not in the business of tricking each other up here.”

The Associated Press reported that recruiting candidates to draw votes from opponents was not uncommon in Alaska, a state with a history of tight races. About 60% of 600,000 registered voters identify as independents, one of the highest percentages in the country. As recently as 2024, the Alaska Republican Party fought to keep on the ballot an imprisoned felon with no ties to the state who was running as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives seat then held by Peltola. Peltola lost that race.

A federal lawsuit brought by the Trump administration sought to revive the earlier effort to keep the former teacher off the ballot and to block certification of the election results in a potential Mary Peltola victory. A federal judge dismissed the suit Sunday, and the Justice Department quickly appealed.

Mustian reported from New Orleans. Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Nicholas Riccardi in Washington contributed reporting.