The 2 Dan Sullivans, 1 Senate Seat, And An Alleged Democratic Plot To Flip Congress

A New York Times investigation suggests Democrats may have recruited candidates with the same name as Alaska’s Republican senator to siphon votes and help Democrat Mary Peltola win.

Oct 29, 2026 - 18:20

The 2 Dan Sullivans, 1 Senate Seat, And An Alleged Democratic Plot To Flip Congress

Two headshots of older men, one with gray curly hair wearing a dark shirt, the other with short gray hair wearing a light-colored shirt. — Source:

The tale of the two Dan Sullvans in Alaska, both vying for the same US Senate seat, just got a bit more nefarious.

According to an extensive investigation published by The New York Times, it appears that what was once seen as a historic troll of the ages–a man with the same name as an incumbent entering the race for Congress if only to draw votes from the actual Dan Sullivan–might actually have been spearheaded by Democrats looking to take over Congress.

As it stood, Dan Sullivan is the state’s Republican senator. The actual challenge to his seat is Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. Another man named Dan J. Sullivan–a retired teacher from a small, tiny fishing village so obscure it can only be reached by plane or boat– had never campaigned for office, switched his affiliation from “unaffiliated” to Republican, and joined the ballot right before the deadline.

At the behest of President Trump, the Justice Department sued in federal court to block the election certification should their guy not win. They claimed that Dan J. Sullivan was a Democrat plan whose only purpose in the election was to cause uncertainty and steal votes from the other Dan Sullivan.

The Times started digging around.

“The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader,” the paper wrote. “The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.”

Matthew Salisbury, a former congressional candidate, told the Times that wealthy donors approached him wanting him to run for Senate as an independent candidate. Salisbury claimed that he met the man in a pub in Anchorage and that after the two men talked, he decided that he wouldn’t be interested. Salisbury declined to identify the man.

“I’m not naïve,” he said.

Trump took to Truth Social to call for Peltola and the “fake” Dan Sullivan to be removed from the ballot.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (not the Mike Dunleavy that once coached Tulane’s men’s basketball or his son Mike Dunleavy who once played in the NBA and is now an executive for the Golden State Warriors) ordered an investigation into claims that Dan J. Sullivan was pushed to run for office.

“Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support,” Dunleavy said in a statement. “Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who has represented Alaska in the Senate since 2022, wrote in a statement that the people of Alaska deserve a full explanation.

“Run and win on your merits: your views, your policy ideas, and your accomplishments,” she wrote. “By contrast, recruiting candidates to manipulate the field and influence voting outcomes is simply wrong.”

No matter what happens, Dan J. Sullivan claims that he “…[is] running in good faith and of his own volition, as a moderate Republican and not a secret Democrat,” as a Times profile put it in August. He said he’d voted in the past for some Alaska Republicans, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, even though he also “acknowledged previous donations to Ms. Peltola and a handful of other Democrats,” and said he would prefer Peltola for Senate over the Republican incumbent “if it was between those two.”