Another little-known candidate in the Alaska Senate race points toward secretive effort to hurt Republicans

By CNN Newsource

Published October 31, 2026 6:00 AM

By Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, Curt Devine, Isabelle Chapman, CNN

(CNN) — As a Justice Department investigation scrutinizes whether Democrats recruited a Senate candidate to confuse Alaska voters, a big-money effort propping up a different fringe name on the ballot could also hurt Republicans in that race – and in another pivotal contest in Ohio.

Newly created political action committees linked to a Wisconsin operative with a history of election-law violations are spending millions to attack Republican incumbents in Alaska and Ohio from the right and to promote longshot conservative challengers, a CNN investigation found.

Both races could help determine control of the Senate.

Who is financing the spending in the final days before the elections remains unclear. But the groups all share a common link: Thomas Datwyler, a Wisconsin political consultant who has faced a litany of campaign finance complaints around the country.

The groups’ spending could draw new federal scrutiny if Democrat Mary Peltola succeeds in unseating Republican Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan.

President Donald Trump and other top Republicans have accused Peltola’s campaign of recruiting Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a rural schoolteacher, onto the ballot to siphon votes from the incumbent, after the New York Times quoted Peltola’s former campaign manager airing new allegations about the effort this week. Peltola has denied knowledge of the plan.

Another little-known conservative in the race, a drywall contractor named Gerald “Jerry” Heikes, told the Times he was also recruited to run by a man who promised to “make things happen for you.” Heikes, who didn’t respond to messages from CNN, said he didn’t remember the man’s name.

Two PACs that have listed Datwyler as their treasurer have now spent more than $3.75 million attacking Sen. Sullivan and supporting Heikes since mid-October.

They follow the same playbook of a different Datwyler-affiliated PAC that spent more than $2 million in the Alaska Senate primary in August – and which later revealed it was funded in part by a liberal dark-money group.

In Ohio, meanwhile, yet another Datwyler-linked PAC has dropped more than $3.8 million to attack GOP Sen. Jon Husted and support William Redpath, a longshot libertarian candidate on the ballot.

Redpath said he’d never met Datwyler, didn’t know the source of the money supporting his candidacy, and in fact had never seen the PAC’s ads endorsing his run until contacted by CNN.

Election experts say there’s a long and legal tradition of political groups trying to siphon votes away from opponents by quietly supporting fringe candidates. But they also warn that the tactics undermine faith in elections and show the outsized influence of hard-to-track money flowing through the nation’s political system.

“This type of gamesmanship can erode public confidence in the electoral process,” said Michael Beckel, the director of money-in-politics reform at Issue One, a bipartisan advocacy group. “When voters discover after an election that an organization from the opposing political camp secretly financed advertising supporting a candidate, they may reasonably question what else they don’t know.”

But free speech advocates say PACs should be allowed to support candidates for any reason and that voters can decide how to act.

“I don’t really see a solution,” said David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech. “It’s part of democracy. It’s a messy process. Free speech is messy, but it’s better than the alternatives.”

Datwyler did not respond to requests for comment. A woman who answered the door at his Wisconsin home on Thursday said he “wouldn’t want to talk” about his activities in Senate races. On Friday, one of the PACs filed an updated registration with the Federal Election Commission naming a new treasurer.

In a video posted to his company’s Instagram account last year, Datwyler responded to criticism of his political work.

“The work is so much more important than the noise and the press that attack me with meaningless, meritless articles,” he said. “It motivates me more because I know that they wouldn’t be attacking me or my clients if we weren’t an actual threat to them and their power.”

Last-minute big money

The PACs pouring millions into backing longshot candidates this month are taking advantage of a loophole in federal campaign finance law: Because they didn’t start spending until the final two weeks of the campaign, they won’t have to disclose their donors until after Election Day.

This isn’t the first time groups tied to the same political strategist have used that loophole to meddle in the high-profile Alaska race.

In the Alaska Senate primary in August, a PAC that listed Datwyler as treasurer, Right for Alaska, spent more than $2.3 million in the days before the vote to attack Sen. Dan Sullivan and boost Heikes and Earl Southworth, another longshot candidate running as a member of the “Alaskan Party.”

The group started spending late enough that it didn’t have to disclose its donors until after the primary, according to FEC filings. When it finally filed records, they revealed that almost all of its funding came from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a liberal dark money group that has been a major backer of PACs supporting Democratic candidates, and another shadowy group called Liberty Force Action Fund.

Liberty Force Action Fund, which is listed in FEC records with only a Virginia post office box as an address, has not been reported as a donor in any other federal races, and has not yet filed any publicly available paperwork as a non-profit or political group.

Republican groups also got in on the effort to prop up minor candidates in the primaries. A Republican super PAC funded a PAC that spent more than $800,000 promoting a Green Party candidate and another minor Democrat in the Alaska Senate race and opposing Peltola.

Heikes, who does not appear to have actively campaigned and has not reported spending any money, came in fifth in the primary and advanced to the general election after another longshot Democratic candidate, David Leslie, dropped out. Meanwhile, Right for Alaska shut down after the primary.

Now, in the days before the general election, two new groups registered by Datwyler, Alaska Values PAC and Red Alaska PAC, are following the same playbook. Alaska Values, which was registered last month, has spent at least $3.75 million on the race, according to FEC records filed on Thursday. Red Alaska, which was registered earlier this month, has spent an additional $10,000, according to its latest filing. Neither PAC has reported any of their donors.

In YouTube ads purchased by Alaska Values, narrators claim Sullivan had supported transgender issues or excessive federal spending and portray Heikes as the real conservative. The ads urge voters to avoid ranking Sullivan under Alaska’s unusual ranked-choice voting system.

“Rank one name, leave the rest blank: Only rank Heikes,” a narrator declares in one ad.

Another PAC that lists Datwyler as treasurer, Buckeye Freedom PAC, is following the same playbook in the highly contested Ohio Senate race.

The group, which also won’t have to disclose any of its donors until after the election, has reported spending more than $3.8 million on ads, texting and direct mail to attack Husted and support Redpath.

In one of the PAC’s ads, a gun-toting narrator accuses Husted of “pushing background checks and red flag laws,” while touting Redpath as “a real Second Amendment guy.”

Redpath, who has previously run for office in Virginia and Illinois, told CNN he had never heard of Datwyler and knew nothing about the group’s spending.

“I’ve never spoken with the man,” Redpath said. “I don’t know who these people are. They want to promote my candidacy, and that’s fine. If people want to promote my candidacy, that’s their right to do so.”

A Datwyler-linked group has also supported a mainstream Republican nominee in at least one other key Senate race. Another PAC that he’s the treasurer of, Sportsmans Alliance of Maine Action Fund, reported spending more than $62,000 to support GOP Sen. Susan Collins this week.

A checkered political history

In an interview with a political website posted last year, Datwyler claimed that he had “served as treasurer for more conservative committees than any other professional in the US” in the previous election cycle. He has served as the treasurer of more than 180 PACs that were registered since the beginning of 2025, according to FEC records.

He has primarily been associated with Republican campaigns and groups, the records show, including several high-profile campaigns. In 2023, committees aligned with then-New York Rep. George Santos listed Datwyler as treasurer, but a lawyer for Datwyler told CNN that had been done without his authorization.

As a treasurer, Datwyler’s primary job is signing paperwork and ensuring compliance with campaign finance law, not directing operations. Datwyler and groups listing him as treasurer have faced repeated complaints and in some cases had to pay fines over campaign finance violations.

In 2024, the campaign of then-Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, which listed Datwyler as treasurer, paid a $159,000 penalty to the FEC over failing to correctly disclose loans totaling more than $11 million. The committee said that a different former treasurer was responsible for the errors.

The FEC also issued smaller fines to two other 2022 campaigns Datwyler was treasurer for, after finding former Rep. Rodney Davis’s campaign failed to timely refund excess contributions and finding former GOP Congressional candidate Joe Kent’s campaign had failed to file required 48-hour contribution notices.

State attorneys general in Mississippi and Tennessee both opened investigations into Datwyler and political groups he served as treasurer for in recent years over allegations of campaign finance violations, according to local media reports. Neither case led to charges.

A complaint from the Campaign Legal Center in May alleged that a committee called ALF PAC, which listed Datwyler as treasurer, misattributed the source of a $250,000 contribution.

Another CLC complaint in May alleged that the campaign of Texas congressional candidate Brandon Herrera, which lists Datwyler as treasurer, used another company “as a shell entity to conceal” vendors being paid, including one with an address linked to Datwyler. And a third complaint filed in 2024 alleged a congressional candidate in Wisconsin used a “straw donor” scheme to transfer $37,500 from his state committee to his federal campaign committee, where Datwyler served as treasurer.

Those FEC complaints remain pending, a CLC spokesperson told CNN.

Supporting longshot candidates is not a new tactic for groups linked to Datwyler. In 2021, a group listing Datwyler as treasurer, Our First Principles Fund, spent more than $60,000 promoting a third-party candidate, Princess Blanding, and opposing another candidate in the competitive governor’s race in Virginia, records show.

Blanding won less than 1% of the vote in that race. Virginia Public Media previously reported on that spending.

CNN’s Rob Kuznia contributed to this report.

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