A Fishing Town, Two Sullivans, and a Knock at the Door

Petersburg, Alaska, is the kind of town where the post office knows your name and the harbor knows your boat. It calls itself "Little Norway," a fishing community of three thousand souls accessible only by air or water, where the winter is long and the gossip is warm and the arrival of a stranger is an event. In recent days, the strangers have been federal agents, and the town has become something it never asked to be: a dateline.

The Dan Sullivan affair began, depending on whom you ask, as either a quirky footnote in Alaska's ranked-choice politics or a calculated scheme to confuse voters. What is not disputed is that there are two Dan Sullivans on the ballot: the Republican incumbent senator, Dan S. Sullivan, and a retired elementary school teacher named Dan J. Sullivan, who lives in Petersburg and whose campaign has raised eyebrows since he filed to run . The state Division of Elections tried to remove the teacher from the primary ballot, determining he had not filed as a Republican in good faith, but a court overturned that decision .

Now the FBI has come knocking. Agents have visited donors in at least two remote Alaska communities and a couple in Massachusetts, asking whether they felt "misled" about which Sullivan they were supporting . An Anchorage-based agent left a business card at a boat dealership in Petersburg for Charles Flint, who contributed five hundred dollars to the teacher's long-shot campaign. Flint told the Associated Press he did not feel misled at all. "Everybody knows who the incumbent is," he said . Another donor described the agents as "scrupulously polite" and said the conversation lasted about five minutes .

The investigation has widened amid reporting that Mary Peltola's campaign, the Democrat challenging the incumbent, may have been involved in recruiting the teacher to run. Peltola has denied any role, calling the allegations "garbage" and a "smear campaign" at a rally in Anchorage. "I know I can beat Dan Sullivan," she said. "I do not need any help winning this race" . The teacher, Dan J. Sullivan, has said he entered the race on his own accord, telling the AP in June there was "zero, none, zilch" contact with Peltola's campaign . He has not been seen publicly in weeks.

Alaska U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman told reporters the federal investigation has been underway for months, but recent revelations produced a "significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska" . President Trump, speaking at a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, called it "voter fraud at the highest level" and suggested without evidence that the teacher had gone into hiding out of guilt . A federal lawsuit brought by the Trump administration to block certification of a potential Peltola win was dismissed on Sunday; the Justice Department has appealed .

In Petersburg, the Halloween party at Kito's Kave went on as planned. One patron dressed as an FBI agent. Another wore a prison placard that read: "Being a Registered Voter in Alaska" . The town is holding its humor close, because the alternative is to hold its worry. The ballots will be counted on Tuesday, and the FBI will keep knocking, and a small fishing town will keep wondering how it became the center of something so much larger than itself.

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Sources: Daily Excelsior, Spectrum Local News, New York Post, San Antonio Express-News, Associated Press