WASHINGTON — Top campaign aides for Alaska Senate hopeful Mary Peltola were instructed to search for people named Dan Sullivan they could recruit for the contest, and she was “definitely aware,” a bombshell report revealed.
The goal was to siphon votes away from incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-Alaska), and allies of Peltola managed to succeed in the recruitment effort, the New York Times reported.
“Alaskan voters need to know,” Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, who was ousted during a dramatic staff overhaul in August, told the outlet.
“There was a lot of speculation, and voters should get the full picture when making their decisions,” she added, noting that Peltola was not directly involved in the recruitment effort, but “definitely aware.”
Ultimately, retired public school teacher Dan J. Sullivan, referred to by his critics as “Decoy Dan,” jumped into the race just before the deadline and made the cut for the top four candidates ahead of the deadline.
Peltola’s campaign has repeatedly denied accusations that it played a hand in recruiting “Decoy Dan,” but the New York Times interviewed a dozen people involved with or informed about the plan and reviewed text messages.
Rios, who is gearing up for a lawsuit against the Peltola campaign over her firing, later attempted to retroactively retract all of her statements to the outlet about the efforts to recruit another Dan Sullivan.
Aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) were also involved in the gambit, which was aimed at pulling votes away from Sen. Sullivan through confusion. The DSCC denied involvement.
“The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign,” Peltola’s campaign told The Post in a statement when asked about the report. “Like Mary, our campaign is focused on lowering costs and fixing the rigged system in DC.”
The campaign also pointed The Post to a list of examples of Republican-led spoiler efforts in Democratic races. The Post also contacted reps for “Decoy Dan.”
Alaskan officials sought to minimize confusion by labeling Sen. Sullivan as the incumbent as well as putting the candidates’ initials. Peltola is the only Democrat on the four-person ballot, thanks to a successful pressure campaign to get David Leslie to drop out.
The winner on Nov. 3 will be determined through ranked-choice voting.
Like Sen. Sullivan, “Decoy Dan” is also registered as a Republican, despite admitting to voting for Democrats in recent presidential elections and attending a “No Kings” rally.
“Decoy Dan” was also seen with a magnet of radical lefty revolutionary figure Che Guevara on his refrigerator.
The retired teacher’s place on the Alaska Senate ballot has prompted a lawsuit from the Justice Department and spurred multiple investigations.
The recruitment effort stemmed from Democratic operative Jerid Kurtz, who specializes in shady campaign tactics, according to the report. Kurtz was the one who discovered “Decoy Dan.”
“[‘Decoy Dan’] said he hated Trump, and if it was going to help Mary, he liked Mary. He didn’t have any interest in being a politician, but if this could help,” Rios recounted Kurtz’s description of the recruit to the outlet.
Officials with Peltola’s campaign and the DCCC communicated for months about Kurtz’s pursuit, text messages reviewed by the outlet showed.
Kurtz posed as a man named “Zane” to Alaskans he tried to recruit for the spoiler effort, some of the people he tried to conscript later revealed.
Peltola finished first in the open primary held in August and has a 1.2-point edge over Sen. Sullivan in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. President Trump blasted Peltola in response and suggested that she should be taken off the ballot.
“Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC,” he posted on Truth Social.
