Chuck Schumer spent more than a year helping plant a decoy Dan Sullivan on Alaska’s Senate ballot to confuse voters, Republicans charge, and Mary Peltola says she knew nothing.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso says the alleged plot reaches the top of Senate Democrats. In an interview with Fox News Digital, the Wyoming Republican said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “schemed and colluded” with Rep. Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign for over a year to recruit another candidate named Dan Sullivan and put him on the Alaska ballot beside incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
The aim, Barrasso said, was simple: sow confusion under Alaska’s ranked-choice system and give the Democrat an edge in a critical race. Peltola, speaking Thursday at an event in Juneau, denied any knowledge of the second Sullivan and said she only ever knew of herself and the incumbent on the ballot.
The New York Times first reported that operatives tied to Peltola’s campaign and top aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee helped find and recruit the other Dan Sullivan. National Democrats have maintained they had no hand in the move. Schumer’s office and Peltola’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital requests for comment.
Barrasso did not mince words about what he believes happened.
He told Fox News Digital the conduct was meant to steal the seat.
"I mean, this is criminal behavior to steal the Alaska Senate race, it's now been fully exposed."
He went further on the timeline and the players he holds responsible.
"And there is proof that the Peltola campaign knew about it, and that Schumer schemed and colluded with them for over a year to try to search for and then coax a decoy of Dan Sullivan onto the ballot with a purpose only to deceive the voters."
Barrasso also branded the architects of the plan “dirty, rotten scoundrels, cheaters” and asked how much more cynical Democrats could get. He expressed confidence that the real Sen. Dan S. Sullivan would still win.
The same-name candidate would appear alongside Peltola, the incumbent Sullivan, and another contender, Gerald Heikes, on a ranked-choice ballot, a setup Republicans say was built to misdirect votes.
Related coverage has tracked how Alaska Democrats ran a secret plan around the second Sullivan candidacy as the race tightened.
In Juneau, Peltola pushed back hard. She said she wanted to clear the air and rejected any plan to trick voters.
"I knew nothing about any other candidates on the ballot except for me and the incumbent."
She added that she knows she can beat Dan Sullivan without gamesmanship.
"That is all I have ever known about. I am not interested in tricking voters. I know I can beat Dan Sullivan."
Just the News reported the same denial from her speech in a Juneau bar, noting she faces both the incumbent and a retiree named Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot while federal and state probes move forward.
Her denial lands against a backdrop of earlier staff turmoil. Separate reporting has detailed how nine former staffers accused Peltola of abuse, slurs, and profane outbursts, claims that have kept pressure on her campaign brand.
Fellow Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski condemned the episode on X and said Alaskans deserve straight answers.
"ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process."
She argued the revelations show a deeper problem inside the Peltola effort.
"Alaskans deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign, what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials."
Ranked-choice voting is supposed to let voters mark honest preferences. Recruiting a near-identical name does the opposite. It turns a ballot into a trap for anyone who skims too fast or trusts the first “Sullivan” they see.
That is why the story has also drawn fresh scrutiny of how Alaska Democrats plotted a second Dan Sullivan to muddy the field in the first place.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered a state investigation after the Times reporting. In a statement carried by National Review, Dunleavy said the article revealed an organized effort to recruit same-name candidates, confuse voters, and misdirect support toward Peltola.
“Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support,” Dunleavy said. “Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.”
The Alaska Division of Elections had already looked at similar concerns in June. The state Supreme Court later restored copycat candidate Dan J. Sullivan to the ballot despite fraud worries. A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas. The Justice Department has filed suit that could block certification if the sham candidacy alters the outcome. Legal fights at the state and national levels have been running for months.
Those steps track with reporting that the Justice Department ramped up a criminal probe into the second Sullivan’s place on the Alaska ballot.
Washington Examiner investigations editor Sarah Bedford told The Hugh Hewitt Show the Times did not pull punches. She said the allegations fit a pattern Republicans had long suspected, yet still landed as a jolt.
“It kind of falls into the category of something that’s not that surprising, but also completely shocking, because this was a suspicion that a lot of Republicans had that the Democrats were involved in this,” Bedford said.
That mix, long-standing suspicion meeting hard reporting, is why the story refuses to die. Operatives allegedly shopped for a name twin. Party campaign aides are accused of helping. The Senate Democratic leader is accused by the chamber’s No. 2 Republican of steering the search for more than a year. The candidate at the center now says she knew nothing. Her campaign and Schumer’s office stayed silent when asked.
Voters in Alaska are left with a ballot that can feature two Dan Sullivans, Peltola, and Heikes. Ranked-choice rules do not fix a deliberately muddy field. They only process the confusion after the fact.
Accountability here is not complicated. If party operatives and campaign aides hunted a decoy to siphon votes, they treated Alaska voters as marks. If senior Democrats blessed the search, they put power ahead of a clean count. Peltola’s denial and the national party’s shrug do not erase the record now in public view. Elections only work when the names on the ballot mean what voters think they mean, and when leaders who game that trust face the cost.
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