A Democratic operative using the alias "Zane" spent last summer traveling through Alaska pubs and diners looking for men named Dan Sullivan. He found a retired schoolteacher in Petersburg — Dan J. Sullivan — and got him on the ballot for U.S. Senate against the actual Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
Six days before the election, the whole thing unraveled.
The New York Times published an investigation on October 28 revealing that Mary Peltola's Senate campaign ran what internal documents called a "ballot composition project" — a covert operation to recruit namesake candidates and split the Republican vote. The operative, Jerid Kurtz, was directed by Peltola's then-campaign manager Elisa Rios, who told the Times that Peltola was "definitely aware" of the scheme. Rios was fired before the August primary.
The fallout has been immediate. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered the Alaska Department of Public Safety to investigate "whether this scheme violated Alaska's laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted." Federal prosecutors launched what's been described as an "aggressive criminal investigation" into how the second Sullivan secured his spot on Alaska's ranked-choice ballot. The Justice Department filed to seek expedited discovery from the Peltola campaign, noting the campaign "may have been aware of the New York Times reporting before it was published" while simultaneously asking a federal court to dismiss a related lawsuit.
The scheme wasn't limited to one decoy. The Times investigation, corroborated by text messages, internal documents, and 11 additional sources, revealed the campaign also recruited Gerald Heikes, a drywall contractor and Republican long-shot who earned just 1% in the August primary. Heikes told reporters someone from the Lower 48 approached him: "The man said, 'We can't help your campaign, but we'll back you, and we'll take care of some advertising.'" Political groups tied to the progressive Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $2 million on ads to boost Heikes.
Sen. Sullivan didn't mince — actually, Sullivan laid it out flat on Hannity: "This is a scandal at the highest order. She and her team spent over a year scheming in secret operation to trick Alaskans. They've been lying for almost a year about it, and now they're caught."
President Trump posted on Truth Social calling for prosecution: "Mary Peltola should resign from the race. I think she should be prosecuted criminally for what she did. This guy Dan Sullivan just ran against Dan Sullivan. It turned out it was a scheme by the Democrats."
The campaign's response has been remarkably thin. Spokesperson Harry Child offered: "Like Mary, our campaign is focused on lowering costs and fixing the rigged system in DC." Fixing the rigged system. From the campaign that literally rigged the ballot.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski — not exactly known for partisan bomb-throwing — called it what it was: "Ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process. What has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections."
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's defense was that "Republicans have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates." Which is a fascinating thing to argue when your operative was traveling under a fake name through Alaskan fishing towns recruiting warm bodies to file paperwork. The DSCC, the Elias Law Group, and Peltola's own senior staff coordinated this for over a year. Sullivan campaign spokesperson Nate Adams connected the dots: "Mary Peltola, her campaign, and her senior advisors colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers, and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit a candidate to deliberately deceive and confuse voters, and then repeatedly lied about it."
Even the progressive candidate who dropped out of the race wanted no part of it. David Leslie, who finished fourth in the primary, said: "We should be talking to our friends and neighbors about issues that matter, rather than trying to manipulate a system."
Alaska's ranked-choice voting system was supposed to produce better candidates and cleaner elections — that was the pitch when voters approved it in 2020. Instead it produced a ballot where "Sullivan, Dan S." appeared next to "Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.," and the campaign of the woman running against both of them helped put him there.
The Petersburg Dan Sullivan pulled 2.5% in the August primary. The scheme didn't work particularly well. But two criminal investigations don't care about vote percentages. They care about whether a U.S. Senate campaign conspired to deceive voters on a federal ballot — and the campaign manager already told the New York Times that the candidate knew.