Watchdog Accuses Senate Candidate of Acting as Decoy While Colluding With a Group Spending Millions

A retired Alaska schoolteacher filed for US Senate under the exact same name as the sitting Republican senator.

Alaska Republicans spent the primary treating it like a joke while a liberal group poured $575,000 into the race's final stretch.

A government watchdog now says the decoy campaign and that liberal group were working together the entire time.

Amber Lee Worked Both Sides of the Same Race

The watchdog group Americans for Public Trust filed a Federal Election Commission complaint naming Daniel J. Sullivan, the retired teacher Alaska Republicans have nicknamed "Decoy Dan."

His campaign paid a consultant named Amber Lee $4,380.41 for website and digital work.

Amber Lee also sat on the board of 907 Initiative, a left-leaning group that spent roughly $1.5 million attacking incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Federal law bans exactly this kind of overlap.

A campaign cannot share a strategist with an outside group that is simultaneously spending millions to shape the same race, and Americans for Public Trust says that's precisely what happened here.

"It's a violation of federal election law to work for both Dan J. Sullivan's campaign and an outside group that's spending millions on advertisements benefiting the campaign," the group's executive director, Caitlin Sutherland, said.

The Money Trail Started One Day After Decoy Dan Filed

Daniel J. Sullivan filed his Senate paperwork on May 29.

907 Initiative had launched its first attack ad against the real Sullivan one day earlier, on May 28.

The group then poured roughly $575,000 into the race in the final ninety days before Alaska's August primary, timed to land right when confused Republican primary voters were filling out ballots.

907 Initiative's executive director, Aubrey Wieber, denies any coordination and says he "found out about the connection by reading the news."

The Justice Department is reportedly already looking at the decoy candidacy separately, and now the FEC has a complaint to work through as well.

907 Initiative Already Had a Machine Running Against Sullivan

This wasn't 907 Initiative's first swing at the real Sullivan.

The group already had a separate campaign running, branding the senator "Yes Man Dan" and accusing him of voting with national party leadership 98 percent of the time on tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and food assistance.

Their petition, titled "Yes Man Dan: Stop Raising Our Prices," was already collecting signatures before Daniel J. Sullivan ever filed his decoy candidacy.

907 Initiative did not need to build new infrastructure to hurt the real Sullivan. It already had a machine running, and the decoy candidacy just gave that machine a second attack lane federal election law was supposed to keep separate.

The Confusing Name Was Never the Point

This was never a coincidence story.

It was a strategy to put a fake Dan Sullivan on the same ballot as the real one, bank on primary voters not reading closely, and bleed off just enough Republican votes to hand Mary Peltola an easier path in November.

Liberal groups didn't need to convince Alaskans to vote for a Democrat when they could just make Republicans vote for the wrong Republican.

Name confusion is not a natural accident in a U.S. Senate race. Someone has to file the paperwork, someone has to fund the attack ads, and someone has to make sure the timing lines up close enough that voters can't sort it out before they vote.

Alaska Republicans need to demand the FEC and the Justice Department finish this investigation before 2028 gives someone else the same idea in a different state.

Sources:

• Just the News, "Alaska GOP candidate with same name as incumbent Sen. Sullivan colluded with liberal group: watchdog," Just the News, Sept. 8, 2026.
• The Alaska Story, "Breaking: New FEC complaint alleges 'Decoy Dan' campaign coordinated with liberal 907 Initiative," The Alaska Story, Sept. 8, 2026.
• Alaska Public Media, "Is a U.S. Department of Justice investigation about to disrupt Alaska's U.S. Senate race?" Alaska Public Media, Aug. 24, 2026.
• NBC News, "Dan Sullivan endorses Dan Sullivan to beat Dan Sullivan in perplexing Alaska Senate race," NBC News, 2026.
• 907 Initiative, "Yes Man Dan," 907initiative.org, 2026.