Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in June had already called out the Democrat-manufactured plot to confuse voters by having a man with the same name run against him, months before any concrete action was taken to foil the scheme.
Speaking on The Alex Marlow Show on June 2, the senator sounded the alarm on a left-wing decoy, Daniel J. Sullivan, entering the race between Republican Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan and Democrat candidate Mary Peltola — months before it was revealed that it was Peltola's campaign that recruited him solely to confuse Alaskans and siphon votes from the senator.
"What happened was, there was another candidate who filed at the last minute with the name Dan Sullivan from Petersburg, Alaska. He's a sham candidate," Sen. Sullivan said on the show, hosted by Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow.
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"What do I mean by that? First, he's doing everything in his power to confuse Alaskans," the incumbent explained, before emphasizing his donations to Democrats, including Peltola. "Let me just give you a couple examples. He is a liberal, progressive Democrat. We have all the records of all the liberals he's supported. He's even supported, again, the Democrat candidate in this race, Mary Peltola, a couple times with donations."
The other Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher who lives in the remote Alaskan town of Petersburg, which is only accessible by air or sea. As the New York Times revealed last week in a stunning report, the decoy Sullivan was plucked from obscurity after his name turned up on a list of other Alaskans named Dan Sullivan that was compiled by the Peltola campaign.
In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Peltola received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can.
The staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state.
In this photo taken with a smartphone, Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Alaska, speaks to a reporter at a picketing event for Horizon Air flight attendants Wednesday, October 14, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)
This was no random request. Dan S. Sullivan is the name of the state's Republican senator. And if the Peltola campaign or its allies could track down and persuade another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate, the confusion could cost the senator crucial votes on the state's unusual, four-person ballot.
As the Times' Kellen Browning put it, "The plan worked."
Former Peltola campaign staffers interviewed in the article confirmed the plan was real, and that Peltola herself was aware of it. The scheme was even spoken about amongst the campaign's lawyers, as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
"The endeavor, which was internally called the ballot composition project, involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative, who traversed the state using a fake name and made his pitch to would-be candidates over beers at brew pubs," the Times reported.
Continuing his interview with Marlow back in June, Sen. Sullivan said, "He claimed he was a Republican last minute. So he filed as a Republican […] This is a scam. The reason he's doing that, he wants his name to be on the ballot."
Sen. Sullivan was all but completely vindicated in the aftermath of the scandal breaking, despite Peltola denying involvement in getting the other Sullivan to run.
Regardless of Peltola's claims that she had no knowledge on the effort to recruit other Sullivans, the Department of Justice has launched a full-scale investigation and is fighting against a ruling from a judge who dismissed its lawsuit seeking to delay certification of the Alaska Senate election if Sen. Sullivan loses due to possible voter confusion.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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