Peltola Denies Knowing About the Second Dan Sullivan as DOJ Subpoenas Pile Up. Deception Is Wrong Even When It Is Legal.
Mary Peltola denied knowing about an effort to put a second Dan Sullivan on Alaska's Senate ballot as the Justice Department issued new subpoenas and Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered a state probe.
The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.
Days before Alaska votes in one of the races expected to decide control of the U.S. Senate, Democratic candidate Mary Peltola is answering a detailed report that her campaign helped put a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot against Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. The Justice Department has escalated a criminal investigation with new grand jury subpoenas, and Alaska's governor has ordered a state inquiry, the Associated Press reported.
What the report says
The New York Times reported Wednesday on efforts by the Peltola campaign, its lawyers and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to recruit Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg and other challengers, with the aim of drawing votes away from the incumbent. Operatives call the tactic a "ballot composition" project, Alaska Public Media reported, adding that it had not independently confirmed the Times' reporting. One source in the Times story is Elisa Rios, a fired Peltola campaign manager. "Alaskan voters need to know," she told the paper.
The Times cited interviews with 12 people who were involved in or told about the plan, or were contacted as potential recruits, along with dozens of text messages, NBC News reported.
Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled the Petersburg candidate, a retired schoolteacher, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding his declaration of candidacy was filed "with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot's fairness or neutrality." The Alaska Supreme Court ruled he was qualified to run, according to the AP. He has long denied running at Democrats' behest. "Zero, none, zilch," he said in June.
The denials
Peltola spoke at the top of a speech in a Juneau bar on Thursday. "I knew nothing about any other candidate on the ballot except for me and the incumbent. That is all I have ever known about. I am not interested in tricking voters," she said, the AP reported.
Her campaign said in a statement, "The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign." Alaska Public Media noted that the statement did not say whether Peltola herself was involved, and that the committee did not file its statement of organization until January, after many of the incidents in the Times story. A DSCC spokesperson told NBC News, "The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan."
Investigations and reactions
A U.S. official confirmed to NBC News that the Justice Department has issued at least three dozen new subpoenas and document preservation requests, sent to the Peltola campaign and the campaign of the second Sullivan. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has directed the Department of Public Safety to determine "whether this scheme violated Alaska's laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted," NBC News reported.
President Trump called for Peltola to be prosecuted and said she "actually should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted," the AP reported. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who endorsed Peltola for the House in 2024 and now backs Sullivan, wrote, "Alaskans deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign," Alaska Public Media reported.
Not everyone sees a crime. Libby Bakalar, a former state attorney who represented the Division of Elections and who posts left-wing political commentary, told Alaska Public Media, "Not a single illegal thing happened here." The AP noted that political parties often support extra candidates to pull votes from rivals, and that in Ohio's Senate race Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist candidate, according to the AP.
Alaska's ranked choice ballot lets a voter who ranks both Sullivans have the vote count for whichever has more votes, though some voters do not rank their choices. More than 60,000 Alaskans had already voted early as of Wednesday, Alaska Public Media reported.
Opinion: Deception is wrong even when it is legal
Nobody has been charged, and Peltola deserves the same presumption every American gets. But the question here is not only whether a statute was broken. It is whether a campaign tried to win by fooling voters about who they were voting for.
If the Times account holds up, that is exactly what happened. Running a namesake against an incumbent has no purpose except confusion. The state's own elections official saw it at the start. A campaign that spent months denying any role, while issuing statements that are carefully worded around the candidate herself, has not earned the benefit of the doubt.
Scripture puts it simply: "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known." Tricks get found out, and when they do, they damage trust in every election, not just one.
Conservatives should be consistent, though. If Republicans are boosting a socialist in Ohio to split the left, that deserves the same criticism. And a president should not declare who must be prosecuted before investigators finish their work. Let prosecutors follow the evidence. As we argued in DOJ Sues to Block Alaska Senate Certification if Sullivan Loses, Alaska should count its own votes. The best remedy left is an informed voter. Alaskans now have the facts. They can rank their ballots and judge for themselves.
