A federal judge in Alaska ruled on Wednesday that Mary Peltola's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can join the Justice Department's lawsuit over the state's Senate ballot — and the department, which had fought to keep them out, dropped its opposition the same day and said it will seek fast discovery into the reported plan to recruit a second Dan Sullivan onto the ballot.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason's eight-page order in United States v. State of Alaska lets the two Democratic organisations into the case on the defence side, alongside the League of Women Voters of Alaska, Common Cause and two Alaska voters. "It is not readily apparent that the State will adequately represent" the interests of the campaigns and the voting-rights groups that asked to intervene, she wrote. She kept the case on the fast track she set on Monday: the Justice Department must answer the motions to dismiss by 5 p.m. Thursday, the intervenors reply by 5 p.m. Friday, and a decision on throwing the case out could come as early as this week — days before Alaska votes on Tuesday, in a case the department filed after Alaskans had already begun casting ballots.
The department had opposed the Democrats joining, arguing in a 13-page filing that the state was defending the case aggressively and that the would-be intervenors could not show their interests were unrepresented. It withdrew that opposition on Wednesday, hours after The New York Times published its investigation. "Given a change in circumstances — the New York Times reporting that Proposed Intervenor Alaskans For Mary and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee orchestrated a sprawling conspiracy to recruit and prop up a sham candidate for the purpose of deceiving Alaskan voters — the United States withdraws its opposition to the Motion to Intervene," the filing said. "The United States intends to seek expedited discovery from the Campaign regarding the reported conspiracy, including as to whether the Campaign attempted to deceive the Court by seeking an expedited ruling on a motion to dismiss when the Campaign may have been aware of the New York Times reporting before it was published." In the opposition it withdrew, the department had written: "With no apparent sense of irony, Proposed Intervenors decry 'a nationwide attack on free elections' — in defense of including on the ballot a sham candidate whose sole reason for running is to mislead voters into accidentally voting for him, with the goal of assisting the Democrat."
Attorney General Todd Blanche carried the same charge on television on Wednesday: "Let's call it what it is: They are cheating. They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election and not by running on issues, but by putting up a person with the same name so they confuse Alaskans." President Donald Trump, answering reporters' questions about the report at Joint Base Andrews before flying to Ohio, went further. "They said they didn't do it, and we caught them cold," he said. "Mary Peltola should resign from the race. I think she should be prosecuted criminally for what she did, and I think that the people that participated with her should" — noting, he said, that "they swore in all statements that they knew nothing about it."
"It turned out it was a scheme by the Democrats," the president continued. "That's what they do best: they cheat. They have bad policy, but they cheat, and it was just revealed 20 minutes ago that this was happening. So they went to court, they knew nothing about it, they had nothing to do with it. So, that's a fraud. It's a fraud to the public, and they had a Dan Sullivan running against Senator Dan Sullivan. And they didn't put Senator in front, so you had two Dan Sullivans. The people aren't going to be able to tell. And it was a fraud, and they said they didn't do it, and they did do it, and they got caught! And in fact, it was a plot by the Democrat Party. And frankly, they should be, I think they should be prosecuted. To me, that's voter fraud at the highest level. I think Dan Sullivan, the fake Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola should be, number one, they should be taken off the ballot, and number two, they should be prosecuted."
Earlier on Wednesday the president wrote on Truth Social: "The Democrats' false statements were made under oath in Federal Court. Therefore, they perjured themselves, and should be liable for very serious consequences. Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot." The investigation itself established no criminal wrongdoing, no one has been charged over the recruitment effort, and the newspaper notes the tactic at its centre — recruiting candidates to split an opponent's vote, known as ballot stacking — is generally considered legal and has been used by both parties.
The Peltola campaign and the DSCC repeated their denials on Wednesday: neither recruited Dan J. Sullivan, or anyone else, into the race. In court the intervenors argue the case "is about whether DOJ can enjoin Alaska's lawful certification of the U.S. Senate election if the President's preferred candidate loses," and call the suit "an unprecedented pre-emptive strike on democratic elections." Peltola herself has called the lawsuit "desperate," and said she has faith in Alaska voters to tell the two Sullivans apart; her spokesperson, Harry Child, called the suit "a despicable political threat to overturn an election." Dan J. Sullivan did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Senator Dan Sullivan's campaign answered through spokesperson Nate Adams: "Alaskans deserve to know the truth. Mary Peltola, her campaign, and her senior advisors colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers, and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit a candidate to deliberately deceive and confuse voters, and then repeatedly lied about it. Mary Peltola and her campaign have spent months gaslighting Alaskans, denying a scheme they were running all along." Senator Lisa Murkowski, who had criticised the lawsuit when it was filed, reversed herself on Wednesday: "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." Election-law scholar Rick Hasen, author of the Election Law Blog, wrote that the Times story, "if true, strikes me as a political bombshell," but added: "I don't think it has any bearing at all on the current litigation in which the U.S. Department of Justice seeks to delay certification of the race if Dan S. Sullivan narrowly loses on grounds of purported voter confusion. The lawsuit is not going anywhere for any number of reasons."
What the court is now being asked to dig into is the investigation The New York Times published on Wednesday. It found that Mary Peltola's Senate campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ran a secret internal effort — called the "ballot composition project" — to recruit extra candidates into Alaska's Senate race, including a second man named Dan Sullivan, so that votes meant for the Republican senator, Dan S. Sullivan, would leak away to a namesake and other spoilers on the state's four-person ballot.
The investigation rests on two months of interviews with 12 people who took part in the plan, were told about it or were approached by it, on dozens of text messages between Peltola campaign officials and DSCC officials, and on documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign. It involved the campaign's lawyers, an Ohio operative who travelled Alaska under a false name, and a plan — later dropped — to invent a right-wing "MAGA party" to pull more conservatives onto the ballot.
The project began in the summer of 2025, before Peltola had announced. A campaign staffer was instructed by senior aides to find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as possible, and combed voter records to build the list. The opening was Alaska's system: the top four finishers in a single nonpartisan primary advance to a ranked-choice general election, and candidates can claim a party label with no party vetting. In a race that could decide control of the Senate — Republicans hold it 53 to 47 — a small share of mistaken or divided votes could settle it.
According to the report, DSCC aides introduced a veteran Democratic operative, Jerid Kurtz of Ohio, to Peltola's campaign manager, Elisa Rios, and her chief of staff, Anton McParland, as a specialist in secret ballot manoeuvres. The texts show the two camps swapping updates for months — McParland asking after "Jarid," "Jared" or "our friend," the DSCC's campaigns director Andrew Piatt answering one January warning that "our friend in the state is being noticed" with: "We will check in." Rios said Peltola was not directly involved but was "definitely aware."
Early in 2026 Kurtz reported he had found his man in Petersburg, a Panhandle fishing community reachable only by air and sea. Dan J. Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher and longtime Peltola supporter who filed as a Republican; Kurtz said he "hated Trump" and was willing to run if it would help her. He announced in the spring, took 2.5 percent in the August primary and advanced. On the ballot he is "Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.," no party listed; the senator is "Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent." Elections director Carol Beecher ruled the filing was made "with a purpose to confuse or mislead," but the Alaska Supreme Court kept him on the ballot — no basis in state law or the Constitution to remove him. Inside the project the ruling was celebrated: DSCC employee Shelbi Dantic wrote in a group chat, "Other Dan won, will be on ballot." Dan J. Sullivan denies anyone recruited him — asked about contact with Peltola's campaign: "Zero, none, zilch" — and neither he nor Kurtz responded to requests for comment this week.
He was not the only recruit. Gerald Heikes, a Palmer drywall contractor and perennial candidate, told the newspaper he was recruited this spring "by a guy from the Midwest," who met him at a deli and promised backing — "we'll make things happen for you." And the project worked the other side of the ballot too: David Leslie, the progressive Democrat whose fourth primary spot would have split Peltola's vote, says Kurtz was among those who pressed him to withdraw. On August 31, the day Leslie dropped out, Kurtz texted him: "I'm really proud of the action you took today." His exit handed the fourth spot to Heikes, leaving Peltola the only Democrat facing three Republican-identified candidates. One approach failed: Anchorage's Matthew Salisbury described months of pressure from a man calling himself only "Zane," who promised outside spending and never said who was paying; he never ran, and identified Kurtz from a photograph as "Zane."
The money and the lawyers run through the report as well. Federal records show a pro-Peltola super PAC, 49th State PAC, paid about $87,000 this autumn to Wingspan Strategies, a firm Kurtz co-owns; the PAC says it "never hired or paid Jerid Kurtz for performing any services." Rios described a March dinner where Anchorage consultant Jim Lottsfeldt agreed to organise outside spending behind the long shots; Lottsfeldt denies the subject was discussed, and denies any link to Alaska Values, the new super PAC backing Heikes, on whose advertising filings his name appears — an error, he says. An Elias Law Group attorney, Jacquelyn Lopez, whose firm represents both the DSCC and the campaign, took part, according to Rios — and when McParland wrote in January, "Imagine if there was a MAGA party!", Piatt replied: "Smart. Let's see." The party idea fizzled in May.
Both organisations denied the findings. The Peltola campaign said: "The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign and did not recruit any candidates into the race," and neither it nor the DSCC addressed the newspaper's detailed questions. The DSCC said it had "no involvement" in recruiting Sullivan "or any other Republican candidate," and its spokesperson Monica Robinson answered: "Republicans have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates in an attempt to boost their own campaigns – including recruiting a prisoner with a New York address to run against Mary Peltola and spending nearly half a million dollars to secure a spot on the ballot in Alaska for an Arizona resident in the Senate race this cycle." Wire reports confirm Republican super PACs did spend to boost an Arizona-resident candidate in this primary, and backed a prison inmate's ballot place against Peltola in 2024.
Senator Sullivan's campaign answered the investigation in full. "Alaskans deserve the truth," said its spokesperson, Nate Adams. "Mary Peltola, her campaign and her senior advisers colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit candidates to deliberately confuse and deceive voters." Rios, whose account anchors much of the report, said she spoke because "Alaskan voters need to know… voters should get the full picture when making their decisions." She was fired in an August shake-up, has considered a wrongful-termination lawsuit she has not filed, and — as the newspaper disclosed — tried last week to retract all her statements; it published anyway, saying her account matched its other reporting.
The legal fight the newcomers joined on Wednesday was already running. On October 22 the Justice Department sued Alaska at President Donald Trump's direction — "I'm the one that said do it," he told reporters — arguing the second Sullivan's candidacy "threatens to mislead" the senator's supporters, and asking the court to block certification if the senator loses and the namesake's votes would have changed the result, pending an investigation of voter intent. Attorney General Todd Blanche says no vote is being stopped; ballots would be preserved. Alaska's election officials want the suit dismissed "immediately, with prejudice" by November 2; election-law professor Derek Muller says the government's argument has "essentially no likelihood of success"; and the report itself notes such ballot-stacking tactics are common, used by both parties, and generally considered legal. It is that dismissal fight Judge Gleason has now set for a possible decision this week, with the campaign and the DSCC inside the case arguing it themselves.
For Alaska's voters the stake is plain. On Tuesday, November 3, they will rank four names — two of them near-identical — in a state the President carried by some 13 points in 2024, where August's primary finished Peltola 49.5 percent, the senator 41.4 percent, in a race that may settle Senate control. A vote marked for the wrong Sullivan by mistake is a choice its caster never made. Alaska's voters now decide with the full picture in front of them: the findings, the denials, the retraction — and a federal court fight over all of it running into the final days.
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