AP Photo/Mark Thiessen
Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Alaska, hit back at The New York Times after it reported that aides of hers sought to draft into the race a man with the same name as the incumbent senator she is hoping to unseat.
On Wednesday, the Times reported that in the summer of 2025, a staffer for Peltola was instructed by top campaign aides to find as many Alaskans with the same first and last name as Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan as she could. The idea was to draft as many people named Dan Sullivan as possible in an effort to confuse voters. Eventually, a retired schoolteacher of that name filed to run and ultimately ended up placing among the top four in the Senate primary to advance to the general election.
Looking at the general election ballot, however, figuring out which Dan Sullivan is the sitting senator is not exactly a hard solve.
Alaska sample ballot
Senator Sullivan is identified as “(Registered Republican) Incumbent,” while Daniel J. Sullivan has no identifiers. Moreover, as some have pointed out, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system could lead to a scenario in which having a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot actually hurts Peltola.
The Times‘ report is based on text messages, interviews, and documents prepared as part of a possible lawsuit against Peltola’s campaign.
Hours after the report dropped, Peltola angrily denounced the Times.
“This is just another distraction,” she told reporters. “Every day, it’s some new, you know, ‘Look over here moment.’ Not Dan Sullivan, registered Republican, incumbent, voted for this war in Iran 14 times. Lisa Murkowski quit voting for that war in Iran six months ago, and he’s doubling and tripling down. And this is not somebody who’s working in our best interest. And anybody who’s working in our best interest isn’t going to talk about the nonsense. This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions. Nobody at The New York Times cares about affordability in Alaska.”
The U.S. Justice Department has filed a broadly panned preemptive lawsuit against Alaska if Peltola wins the election.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump demanded that both Peltola and the non-senator Dan Sullivan be removed from the ballot.
The post Democratic Senate Candidate Shreds NYT for Reporting Her Staffers Recruited Candidate With Opponent’s Name first appeared on Mediaite.
democratic-senate-candidate-shreds-nyt-for-reporting-her-staffers-recruited-candidate-with-opponents-name
