The Dan Sullivan scheme: Another ‘conspiracy theory’ turns out to be true

It is the biggest bombshell to break right before a midterm election we’ve seen in our lifetimes — and that’s not hyperbole.Earlier this year, an Alaska Democrat Senate campaign allegedly recruited a regular citizen to also run for Senate. Only one prerequisite was required: The goal, of course, was to confuse voters seeking to vote for Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, by having someone with the same name on the ballot. And in a political climate that abandoned civility and sanity, this gambit proves that rock bottom has a basement.The current race in Alaska between the aforementioned Sullivan and Mary Peltola (D) is truly a toss-up: Each of the last five major polls conducted in the state shows neither candidate leading by more than two points. Peltola has a slight advantage overall in the RealClearPolitics average of polls with a 1.2% lead.And perhaps that’s why this scheme to confuse voters into siphoning votes away from the incumbent Dan Sullivan was concocted. Note: The “other” Dan Sullivan, the one who isn’t the incumbent senator, has gone AWOL in recent weeks. He has not campaigned in any capacity, nor has he since announcing his candidacy. He also tried to change his middle initial to match that of incumbent Dan S. Sullivan in an attempt to baffle voters further.The Trump Justice Department certainly noticed how fishy this looked and the ramifications of doing nothing, so it filed a motion to block the certification of the result if Peltola wins.Predictably, the Trump DOJ filing sparked outrage and mockery from the legacy media, who have time and again over the past ten years reflexively opposed Trump on anything and everything he does, all while attaching a nefarious motive in the process.From the Washington Post on Tuesday:“The Justice Department has moved to preemptively block certification of the results of Alaska’s tight Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola next month, launching an unusual legal battle amid broader concerns over the Trump administration’s willingness to accept the midterm election results.”If teaching a journalism course in bias, look no further than the Washington Post, the paper that has never endorsed a Republican presidential candidate in its history. In this case, the language in the paragraph quoted above is quite telling regarding which side they’re taking here. Emphasis mine.“…launching an unusual legal battle amid broader concerns over the Trump administration’s willingness to accept the midterm election results.”“The move marked a remarkable bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to potentially intervene in the outcome of a race that could determine control of the Senate — before the election has occurred,” the front-page story not labeled as an opinion piece added.In other words, elections across the country have no issues. There is no reason to question them, even in Alaska, where it’s obvious what is happening with the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot. And if Trump will not accept the results if the party loses, that makes him a threat to democracy itself.Coverage was no better on much of broadcast news. On Oct. 25, CBS’s Margaret Brennan, on Face the Nation, even went so far to openly debate Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding the DOJ investigation to the point one could confuse her with a spokesperson for the DNC.Brennan: “It seems you already are taking action in Alaska. Just for our audience to understand, there are two Dan Sullivans on the ballot there. There’s the incumbent senator, a Republican, Dan S. Sullivan, and then there’s a challenger there, Dan J. Sullivan. The Justice Department is suing Alaska preemptively to block the certification of the results if Senator Sullivan loses…”Alaska Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, one of the challengers to the incumbent senator, also named Dan Sullivan, poses for a photo on a hike, Sunday, June 7, 2026, on Kupreanof Island, near Petersburg, Alaska. (Karen Dillman via AP) Blanche: “Well, first of all, let me correct you, OK. You describe facts that were just simply, either at best, misleading, but really a lie to your viewers. It is not two Dan Sullivans, one an incumbent and one running. That’s not true. The head of the Alaska Election Commission, not President Trump, not me, has said that the second Dan Sullivan is running solely to confuse voters, solely to pull votes away from the incumbent senator. OK, so that is something that we’re dealing with. It’s not just two Dan Sullivans running on the ballot in Alaska. That is not true.”That’s the proper way to push back. Obviously, Brennan tried to portray the race between the two Dan Sullivans as legitimate by labeling the other Dan Sullivan as a “challenger” who just happened to be on the ballot by benign coincidence; therefore, a nothing-to-see-here scenario.Again, the other Dan Sullivan has not held a single town hall or anything resembling a campaign event. He isn’t challenging anything. To say otherwise, in Blanche’s words, is lying to viewers.Over on CNN, Dana Bash, who insists she’s absolutely objective and neutral, tried her level best to act like this was legal under the high school “everybody’s doing it” mantra.“I use the term ‘dirty tricks’ intentionally because it‘s not illegal,” Bash said on Oct. 28. “This is something that is untoward; it is something that Democrats have tried to do in races where they think it could be to their advantage to run candidates that could siphon votes away from Republicans, and Republicans do the same.”Things became downright comical on ABC News on Oct. 29, when the hosts of The View (and yes, this program is under the ABC News umbrella) accused Trump of attempting to influence the midterm results.“Just to put it in terms, you-know-who [Trump] has been trying and failing to influence the midterms,” moderator Whoopi Goldberg declared before putting the Alaskan ballot up on screen.“What is the problem here? Alaskans are unable to read? They don’t see an X next to somebody’s name?” she asked incredulously.“It clearly says ‘Dan Sullivan, Republican incumbent.’ So it’s very clear. You know who you’re voting for if you vote for that Dan Sullivan,” added conservative panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin.“Then [it says] Dan Sullivan Jr. He’s a junior, so you know he ain’t the other one,” she added.There are no words.But later in the week, a New York Times report, based on 12 sources and included text messages and documents, concluded that the Peltola campaign actively launched a recruiting effort to find another Dan Sullivan willing to run and therefore get on the ballot.“In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can,” the bombshell report begins. “The staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state.”“The plan worked,” the report goes on to say.“It also involved the Peltola campaign’s lawyers, as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which directs the party’s campaign strategy in Senate races across the country. From Washington to Anchorage, those advisers participated in regular conversations about the effort and even considered forming a new political party to draw conservatives onto the ballot,” it continued.Kudos to the New York Times for pursuing what appears to be a seismic scandal that could determine control of the Senate. And because the report came from the New York Times, it could not be dismissed by other left-leaning media outlets as another right-wing conspiracy coming out of its media ecosystem.Another day, another textbook example of most of the legacy media jumping to a false conclusion.DOJ ESCALATES ALASKA LEGAL BATTLE AS IT PURSUES DISCOVERY IN PELTOLA SPOILER OPERATIONPer Gallup, trust in the media has fallen to just 28% in this country. Five years ago, that trust number was 40%.But with the news cycle moving so fast and with news executives unwilling to hand down actual reprimands, expect these “mistakes” that always go in one direction to continue in perpetuity.