@PurpleStrats. Proud Husband. Strategy/comms/policy. Hockey player, skating to where the puck's going. Former: Media Exec, Cap Hill, White House, campaigns.
Washington, D.C.
Joined February 2009
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Ah.. right. They actively recruited a candidate of the same name to not trick voters into voting for the wrong one. Got it.
It's pretty obvious that Democrats were betting some Alaska Republicans would rank only one candidate to protest ranked-choice voting, mistakenly choosing the decoy Dan Sullivan instead of Senator Dan Sullivan. That's why the did it, after all.
What's striking about this "ballot stacking" scheme is that it's largely negated by Alaska's instant-runoff voting system. E.g., if someone ranks the Dan Sullivans 1-2 (in either order), the result is exactly the same after preferences are transferred.
nytimes.com/2026/10/28/us/po…
On the record is... on the record. No do-overs.
Seriously NYT?
"Last week, as The Times prepared to publish this article, Ms. Rios, who had been planning to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Peltola campaign, contacted The Times and said she wanted to take back her previous statements.
“As discussed on our call earlier today, I am confirming that I have retracted all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate Race in connection with any article you may or may not be writing,” Ms. Rios wrote. “I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity.”
It is rare for a source to seek to retract comments made in previous interviews, and The Times’s standards do not obligate reporters to comply with such requests. The Times had never agreed that those previous interviews could not be published, and informed Ms. Rios last week that they would be a part of this story."
The story was based on interviews with 12 people and substantial documentation to support the reporting.
The NYT is so desperate to find an October surprise they bury the lede:
1) The staffer retracted her statement.
2) The staffer was a fired disgruntled employee.
3) They stuff this line in the article:
"Ballot-stacking tactics are common in politics and generally considered legal — and have been employed by both parties in Alaska."
Correct. Under 18 U.S.C. § 241, a conspiracy requires 2 or more people to agree to interfere with federally protected voting rights. No $, written agreement, or successful outcome is required. Recruiting a same name candidate to deliberately deceive voters raises serious legal questions.
The blue-to-red state pandemic migration is an interesting dynamic in this election, particularly if people who fled blue states for a lower cost of living end up voting for the same policies they moved to escape.
We worked on the race to elect @DanSullivan_AK in 2014. Oddly enough, there was yet ANOTHER Dan Sullivan (the former mayor of Anchorage) who nearly entered the GOP primary that year.
At the time, we were concerned about the prospect of having two Dan Sullivans in the primary. Guess the D's were watching, this article is from April, 2014.
adn.com/anchorage/article/an…
Brad Dayspring retweeted
So this is wild. Daniel J. Sullivan (Decoy Dan) has a son Noah. Noah works for Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, the co-chair of the Blue Dog Democrats.
When @MaryPeltola was in Congress, she was a co-chair of the Blue Dog Democrats along with… Gluesenkamp Perez!
The odds of Decoy Dan filing to run against @SenDanSullivan and Decoy Dan’s son workin for Gluesenkamp Perez being a coincidence are near zero.
Brad Dayspring retweeted
This is an important point from Eric. The nonincumbent Dan Sullivan made representations to the court that he was not trying to confuse or mislead voters and that he ran as a Republican because he believes in conservative principles and Republican viewpoints. This sets up another major problem about whether he misled the court in addition to the public.
C'mon @RobGeorge - you know there's a pretty big difference between encouraging voters to support a third-party candidate and deliberately deceiving voters into casting a ballot for a candidate they never intended to support.
One gives voters another choice. The latter attempts to deceive them about who they're actually voting for.
In other races, Republicans have never recruited candidates to get Green Partys on the ballot, right? Or, how about in Florida a few years back? npr.org/2021/03/19/979340075… Unless Peltola's campaign paid the other Sullivan, there's nothing illegal.
There's a pretty big difference between encouraging voters to support a third-party candidate and deliberately deceiving voters into casting a ballot for a candidate they never intended to support.
One gives voters another choice. The other tricks them into wasting their vote.
Brad Dayspring retweeted
Everyone in the extremely damning @nytimes report exposing the Peltola/Democratic role in the Dans Sullivan Maneuver sure did seem to know that it would be bad if they got caught.
Brad Dayspring retweeted
🚨 NEWS: Mary Peltola's campaign plotted an entire SCHEME to recruit a candidate named Dan Sullivan to hurt Senator Dan Sullivan's chances. The campaign has repeatedly DENIED any involvement in the other Dan Sullivan's candidacy.
The @NRSC found in June that Dem strategist Amber Lee wrote the other Dan Sullivan's campaign announcement.
@DailyCaller
Brad Dayspring retweeted
Must just be a weird coincidence that Mary Peltola visited Decoy Dan's town of Petersburg (population ~3,000) just 3 days before he filed to run
SCOOP: Democrats have insisted they have nothing to do with the other Dan Sullivan on Alaska's Senate ballot.
But aides with the Mary Peltola campaign and DSCC were part of a monthslong secret plan to recruit him to run -- as well as other candidates.
nytimes.com/2026/10/28/us/po…
Brad Dayspring retweeted
SCOOP: Democrats have insisted they have nothing to do with the other Dan Sullivan on Alaska's Senate ballot.
But aides with the Mary Peltola campaign and DSCC were part of a monthslong secret plan to recruit him to run -- as well as other candidates.
nytimes.com/2026/10/28/us/po…
Brad Dayspring retweeted
The guy behind the phony Dan Sullivan candidate on Alaska's ballot is the former campaign manager for Sen. Raphael Warnock: Inside Democrats’ Secret Effort to Stack Alaska’s Ballot nytimes.com/2026/10/28/us/po…
Brad Dayspring retweeted
Slotkin got 86% of the black vote
This survey has Abdul getting 88% of the black vote
No one in Michigan believes Abdul is going to outperform Slotkin with black voters including the El-Sayed campaign
Just for the record:
Our final poll of 2024 had Slotkin up 3.7 percentage points, importantly with a significant 6.7% still undecided. detroitnews.com/story/news/p…
This poll has El-Sayed up 6.3 points, with only 3.6% undecided. detroitnews.com/story/news/p…
Brad Dayspring retweeted
Daniel J. Sullivan — not to be confused with incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s on the same ballot — is more than $21,000 in debt for “compliance and legal fees,” according to FEC filings reviewed by The Washington Sun.
me for @washingtonsun
washingtonsun.com/campaigns/…
