The New York Times reported on Wednesday, October 28, that aides to Mary Peltola, the Democrat running for Alaska's U.S. Senate seat, worked for months with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staff on a "ballot composition project" to recruit candidates, among them Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg, who could draw votes from Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. Peltola's campaign and the DSCC deny recruiting anyone, and the Petersburg Sullivan has maintained since June that he entered the race on his own. The paper's main on-record source, Elisa Rios, a campaign manager fired in August, said Peltola was not directly involved but was "definitely aware." Rios, who the Times says had been planning a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the campaign and has not filed one, asked last week to retract her interviews; the Times published them, saying they were consistent with its other reporting, which drew on 12 people and dozens of text messages. The Times also wrote that ballot stacking has been used by both parties in Alaska and is "generally considered legal."
Since then, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, has ordered the state Department of Public Safety to investigate; President Trump has said Peltola and the Petersburg Sullivan should be prosecuted and kept off the ballot; and the Justice Department, citing "a change in circumstances," withdrew its opposition to the campaign joining its lawsuit over certifying the race, and on Thursday amended that lawsuit to add the Times's reporting and a new legal claim. Peltola called the report "another distraction."
The report bears on the second of two grounds a state judge gave in June for restoring the Petersburg Sullivan to the ballot, a factual finding made on a narrower record; the first and main ground was legal. That month Alaska's elections director, Carol Beecher, removed the Petersburg Sullivan from the ballot as not a good-faith candidate, citing his request to be listed as "Dan Sullivan," his switch to Republican registration two days before filing, a website resembling the senator's and a consultant she described as a longtime supporter of Democrats. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews reversed her, ruling that the good-faith requirement "does not appear in the U.S. Constitution, the Alaska Statutes, or the implementing regulations adopted by the Division." He added that her finding that the Petersburg Sullivan sought to confuse voters "is not supported by a preponderance of evidence," meaning she had not shown it was more likely true than not, and wrote that the division "accepted at face-value the assertions of the complaint, and disregarded Mr. Sullivan's assertions." The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed in a brief order and has not issued its full opinion. Republicans had pressed what CNN called "other circumstantial evidence," some of it in the complaints the division acted on: the National Republican Senatorial Committee's June 1 letter to election officials listed his past donations to Democrats, among them $130 to Peltola's two House campaigns, and the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the metadata of his campaign-launch press release listed the consultant, Amber Lee, who has publicly supported Peltola, as its author. The Petersburg Sullivan told his local paper, the Petersburg Pilot, that he found Lee because "I Googled looking for political consultants," and that he backs candidates in both parties. Both rulings came months before the Times published its texts and Rios's account.
What the Times reported
According to the Times, a Peltola staffer was told in the summer of 2025 to list as many Alaskans named Dan Sullivan as possible. Rios said DSCC aides introduced campaign leaders to Jerid Kurtz, a Democratic operative from Ohio, and that in early 2026 Kurtz told the team on a video call that the Petersburg Sullivan "said he hated Trump, and if it was going to help Mary, he liked Mary." Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, described himself to the Times in August as a moderate Republican; the paper describes him as "a longtime supporter of Ms. Peltola and other Democrats." He did not respond to its questions.
Texts the Times reviewed show Anton McParland, then Peltola's chief of staff, writing in January, "I am hearing that our friend in the state is being noticed," and the DSCC's director of campaigns replying, "We will check in." After a court kept the Petersburg Sullivan on the ballot in June, a DSCC employee wrote, "Other Dan won, will be on ballot." Republican Gerald Heikes, now on the ballot, said he was recruited "by a guy from the Midwest" who he did not think resembled Kurtz.
A pro-Peltola super PAC paid about $87,000 this fall to a firm Kurtz co-owns, according to federal records cited by the Times; the PAC said it "never hired or paid Jerid Kurtz for performing any services." Kurtz did not respond.
The denials and the retraction
"The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign and did not recruit any candidates into the race," the campaign told the Times. Alaska Public Media noted that "Alaskans for Mary" "did not file a statement of organization until January of this year, after many of the incidents in the Times story occurred"; a federal court order dates its creation to January 12, the day Peltola declared her candidacy. Campaigning in Soldotna, Peltola said, "Nobody's waking up worried about ballot composition." The DSCC said it is "not involved with Dan J. Sullivan" and that Republicans "have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates." A spokesperson for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told CNN that Schumer "had no knowledge of the activities described in the New York Times report and was not involved in any way." Rios wrote to the Times that she had "retracted all statements." Jim Lottsfeldt, a consultant Rios tied to the effort, denied any involvement and called her a source of "disgruntled, anti-Mary Peltola stuff that I think is often not true."
Investigations and the lawsuit
Dunleavy wrote that the Times story "substantially supports the Division's findings," a reference to Beecher's June ruling, which the state courts reversed, and asked the Department of Public Safety to determine "whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted." His administration's Department of Law, defending the state against the federal suit, said the report confirmed its initial concerns but has no bearing on that case: "Placing candidates on the ballot is a matter of state law, not federal law."
In its filing Wednesday, the Justice Department characterized the report as showing that the campaign and DSCC "orchestrated a sprawling conspiracy to recruit and prop up a sham candidate," and said the discovery it intends to seek would include whether the campaign "attempted to deceive the Court" by pressing for a quick ruling. Judge Sharon Gleason let the campaign, the DSCC and a League of Women Voters group join the case and set Thursday afternoon deadlines for the department's answers to motions to dismiss.
The department responded on Thursday by amending its complaint and asking the judge to set the motions aside as moot, because they target a complaint that no longer exists. The amended complaint, signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, quotes the Times at length and says that while "what the New York Times reports is not always true, its reporting here aligns with what the United States has been alleging." It adds a second claim under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which makes federal law override state actions that conflict with it: that certifying a result that "may be impacted by the scheme" would frustrate the voter-registration law's stated aim of protecting election integrity. The amended complaint says the Times reported that the campaign and the DSCC "orchestrated his sham campaign." The Times used neither word; it reported Rios's account that Kurtz said the Petersburg Sullivan "didn't have any interest in being a politician, but if this could help," and also wrote that Republicans who called him a Democratic plant "haven't been able to prove it." The campaign and the DSCC deny recruiting anyone, and the Petersburg Sullivan has said he entered the race on his own. The order the department asks for is the same as before, now resting on both claims: no certification of any result in which Sen. Sullivan loses but would have won with the Petersburg Sullivan's votes, pending an investigation. Rick Hasen, the election-law scholar quoted below, asked the court Thursday for permission to file a brief, written against the original complaint and supporting the state, calling the department's reading of the federal voter-registration law "preposterous." Attorney General Todd Blanche, defending the suit on CNN on October 25, said "it is an obligation of the states to avoid confusion" and that the Alaska court decision "explicitly didn't consider federal law."
ABC News, citing multiple unnamed sources, reported that prosecutors have begun a new wave of subpoenas in a criminal investigation, aimed at Democratic officials believed to be tied to the recruitment. ABC noted that the department typically avoids overt investigative steps in politically sensitive investigations within 60 days of an election, a practice Blanche played down last week. Blanche told Fox News, "I expect you're going to hear more from the Department of Justice this week as we learn more information."
Trump wrote that the senator should run "without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot" and told reporters, "I think they should be prosecuted." Asked Thursday whether Republicans should seat Peltola if she wins, he said, "you're going to have to see what happens." House Oversight Chairman James Comer asked Rios and Kurtz to sit for transcribed interviews on November 5 and 6. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has endorsed Sen. Sullivan and endorsed Peltola for the House in 2024, said, "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."
Whether any of it is a crime is disputed. ABC's sources said prosecutors are examining whether the maneuvering could violate federal conspiracy statutes, and Fox News, citing two unnamed sources, reported that they are weighing potential charges involving the deprivation of Alaska voters' rights; the Justice Department declined to comment to Fox. Nick Poche, a Republican National Committee spokesman, said that if a super PAC worked in tandem with the Peltola campaign on the recruitment, it would be a federal campaign finance violation, Alaska Public Media reported. Stephen Richer, an election analyst for NBC News, said recruiters could be in the clear if there was "no inducement, like money or threats" and the candidate ran of his own volition. Hasen wrote that if the government could criminalize a candidate's "running for office for having impure motives," then "it could be a crime every time that the Republican Party backs a Green Party candidate." On inducement, the Times reported that a caller whom Anchorage resident Matthew Salisbury identified as Kurtz told him his backers would support him with outside spending if he ran, and Heikes said his recruiter told him, "we can't give you money or anything, but we'll make things happen for you"; the Times reported no payment to Dan J. Sullivan.
Both parties have used the tactic in Alaska. The state Republican Party backed keeping a Democrat serving a New York prison sentence on the 2024 U.S. House ballot, and the Republican-aligned Fair Deal Alaska super PAC spent heavily before this year's primary on two fringe candidates to draw votes from Peltola. Political groups have spent more than $2 million on ads to boost Heikes, one of them heavily funded by the progressive Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
More than 60,000 Alaskans had voted early by Wednesday. If no one wins a first-choice majority on November 3, the ranked-choice count is November 18.
This article reflects reporting through the evening of Thursday, October 29, 2026. Sources: The New York Times, October 28; Alaska Public Media, October 28; Anchorage Daily News, October 28; the Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, October 28 and 29; the Juneau Independent, October 28-29; NBC News, October 29; CNN, October 29; Fox News, October 28; ABC News, October 28 and October 29; the court docket in United States v. State of Alaska, including the Justice Department's October 28 notice, its October 29 amended complaint and response to the motions to dismiss, Judge Gleason's October 28 order, the state's motion to dismiss and Richard Hasen's proposed amicus brief; on the June ballot rulings and earlier evidence, the Anchorage Daily News, June 26, the Daily Caller News Foundation and the Petersburg Pilot, June 4, and CNN, June 7; NPR via Alaska Public Media, October 25.
