In Petersburg, the Other Dan Sullivan Has Gone Dark - and the FBI Is Knocking on His Donors' Doors
A fishing town of 3,000 that Alaskans call Little Norway sits at the center of a federal election probe on Election Eve: the candidate unseen for weeks, his house dark, and agents asking his dozen donors whether they were misled.
In the Alaskan fishing community of Petersburg, nobody has seen Dan J. Sullivan for weeks, the Associated Press reported on Monday. His rustic home stood dark a day after FBI agents visited friends who donated to his campaign to unseat the Republican senator with the same first and last name, Dan Sullivan. The only display of politics at the home was a yard sign from the League of Women Voters: "Stand Up for Democracy: Vote 2026."
Agents have interviewed the campaign's contributors - most of the roughly dozen donors live in Petersburg and together contributed $7,150 - asking whether they were deceived about which Sullivan they were supporting. Sharon Hunter, who with her husband donated $1,000 to Dan J. Sullivan, a former elementary school teacher, told the AP: "It just seems like such a waste of our taxpayer money." At a boat dealership in town, an agent left a business card for donor Charles Flint, who gave $500 over the summer and says he does not feel misled at all. Two more agents made a brief doorstep visit in Sitka, and agents reached a donor's home in Groton, Massachusetts, on Friday.
U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman told reporters in Anchorage the investigation has been under way for several months, but that reporting by The New York Times - that the campaign of Democrat Mary Peltola appeared to be involved in recruiting the retired teacher - produced a significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska. The administration is weighing criminal charges over a campaign tactic known as ballot stacking. On Sunday, a federal judge in Anchorage dismissed the Justice Department's separate lawsuit seeking to block certification of the Senate result, a ruling this station covered earlier today.
Petersburg, a community of about 3,000 known as Little Norway for its late-19th-century Norwegian settlers and reachable only by air or water, is absorbing the attention the way small towns do: at a Halloween party at Kito's Kave, a local bar, a patron dressed up as an FBI agent. On Tuesday, its voters will help decide the Senate race anyway - with the candidate from their own town nowhere to be seen.
