Alaska man says Democratic operative recruited him to run in Senate race

( NewsNation ) — An Alaska insurance manager says a man with a spoofed phone number and only a first name tried to recruit him as an independent Senate candidate, promising backing from wealthy donors he never identified.

Matthew Salisbury, a former Republican U.S. House candidate, told NewsNation's "Katie Pavlich Tonight" on Wednesday that he turned down the offer because he "could never verify who this person was."

His account follows a New York Times report that Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola's aides, campaign lawyers, and Senate Democrats' campaign arm helped recruit candidates who could siphon votes from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Peltola's campaign and national Democrats deny the report.

Alaska governor calls for investigation into Mary Peltola's Senate campaign

Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy directed the Department of Public Safety to investigate whether the effort broke Alaska law, saying in a post on X that the Times reporting "substantially supports" findings from a June Division of Elections investigation. "Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections," he said.

Salisbury said the call came "out of the blue" in December from a man who called himself Zane. The caller said he represented several wealthy donors who wanted to break the two-party system, Salisbury said, but he "would never tell me where the money was coming from."

They met twice before Salisbury decided to pass.

Salisbury said the man never disclosed a tie to Democrats.

He separately told NewsNation the Times showed him a photo of Jerid Kurtz, a Democratic operative and Peltola campaign consultant, and that Kurtz was the man he met.

NewsNation has reached out to Kurtz for comment.

Salisbury said he did not grasp the scope until reading the Times story that morning, adding "a national party is hand-selecting candidates and attempting to manipulate who actually makes the ballot."