Alaska's governor orders a probe into Peltola's Senate campaign over spoiler candidate controversy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into the Democratic candidate running for the U.S. Senate in the state after revelations that her campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting another candidate with the same name as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.

Dunleavy's order, posted overnight on social media, comes a day after President Donald Trump called for the criminal prosecution of Mary Peltola and her campaign.

In a race that's among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber, the Republican president had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of it, demanding that Alaska be prevented from certifying a win by Peltola if Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. remains on the state's ballots.

Dunleavy wrote that reporting by The New York Times “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”

“Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” Dunleavy added, noting that the reporting “substantially supports” earlier findings by the state’s elections board into the matter.

Trump on Thursday cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election. “Well, you’re going to have to see what happens," the president told reporters on his way to a rally in South Carolina. "It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run.”

Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on Dunleavy’s order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.

“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion,” she said in a video posted online. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”

And the situation in Alaska isn't that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on ballots to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.

In Ohio’s Senate race, Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance didn’t go as far as Trump did in calling for Peltola to be prosecuted but said he supported a probe into possible election fraud.

“I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters, on the ballot,” Vance told reporters ahead of a campaign trip to Texas. “She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful.”

Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. He has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign: “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.

Alaskan voters will see “Dan S. Sullivan” identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent” on their ballots, while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” will not have a party affiliation.

The New York Times reported that interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit showed Peltola’s team aimed to coax candidates into the race, with the aim of splitting support for the GOP senator.

Asked about the reporting on Wednesday, Trump told journalists, “I think they should be prosecuted.” He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP. AP writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Vice President JD Vance speaks to the media before boarding Air Force Two for Texas, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (Evan Vucci/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - This combination photo shows Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, left, in Palmer, Alaska, Aug. 17, 2026, and a candidate in Alaska's Senate race, Dan Sullivan, right, in Petersburg, Alaska, July 3, 2026. (AP Photos/Mark Thiessen/Becky Bohrer, File)

FILE - Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks in the Oval Office of the White House during an event with President Donald Trump, Sept. 30, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party on Aug. 18, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

TOLEDO, Spain (AP) — Families desperately searched for missing loved ones Thursday, more than 24 hours after two high-speed trains collided in central Spain, killing at least 69 and injuring dozens of others.

“I have my father, and I don’t know where he is. I hope to find him, oh my Lord," said César Vicente, an actor who traveled 495 kilometers (307 miles) from his native Seville to Toledo in search of his father. He spent the night with many other families at a religious center converted into a base for those affected by the disaster.

Vicente was with his mother and his aunt, all of whom were looking for César Vicente, who was sitting in seat 13A on the RENFE train that struck another operated by the private company Iryo, which had stopped on the tracks. The family was among those who braved the cold to take a short walk on a chilly morning.

“I don’t want this to happen to anyone. This is unbearable,” he added. “This is hell.”

Online, relatives and friends flooded social media with desperate appeals for information on the whereabouts of their loved ones, posting photos or describing the clothes they were wearing when they boarded the trains bound for Seville and details about their physical appearance or the seat in which they were traveling.

In a post Wednesday on Instagram, Alejandra Marroquín told her followers that her sister Adriana, who was wearing dark blue clothes, was traveling in car 8 of the RENFE train and that they had been unable to contact her.

“We’re still praying, we don’t know anything,” Marroquín said in a post Thursday morning, as search teams with sniffer dogs continued to look for victims.

“The entire government is working to respond to the victims’ families, shed light on the tragedy, and strengthen security so that this never happens again,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told reporters on Thursday morning.

This was the second high-speed rail disaster this year. In January, 46 people died after one train jumped the track and slammed into the side of another going the opposite way in southern Spain.

The high-speed rail network has been considered one of Spain’s crowning achievements. It is the world’s second-largest, after China’s. Until this year, it had not experienced a deadly crash since coming into service over three decades ago.

Life in Urda, a small town of about 2,500 people south of Madrid, was turned upside down early Wednesday.

Residents rushed to help in any way they could: from assisting the injured to preparing sandwiches for the unharmed passengers, many of whom they even carried from the tracks to a nearby sports pavilion in their cars.

David Gómez, a construction worker, was working with his brother and another colleague nearby when they heard the crash and ran to help, he told the newspaper El País.

“People were trying to get out through the windows ... We cut through some fences to access the area and treated people with the first-aid kits we had brought until emergency services arrived," he said.

With 180 people injured, including 110 taken to hospitals, authorities issued a call for blood donations.

The response was immediate: in Castilla-La Mancha alone, the region where the collision occurred, more than 2,000 people volunteered in the aftermath.

“I want to express my personal and very sincere gratitude to everyone who has stepped up, starting with the all-time record number of donations,” said the region’s president, Emiliano García-Page, who also thanked the 1,300 emergency service personnel who were mobilized.

Medrano reported from Madrid.

Cranes lift wrecked train carriages as rescuers search for victims following a collision between two trains in Urda, Spain, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

High-speed trains are photographed on their platforms at Madrid's Atocha station, Spain, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

People observe a minute of silence in memory of the victims of a train collision at Atocha railway station in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Iryo employees react after observing a minute of silence for the victims of a train collision at Atocha railway station in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

People searching for relatives who were traveling on the trains involved in a collision gather at a religious residence converted into a temporary medical facility in Toledo, Spain, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrea Comas)