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 staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state.
This was no random request. Dan S. Sullivan is the name of the state’s Republican senator. And if the Peltola campaign or its allies could track down and persuade another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate, the confusion could cost the senator crucial votes on the state’s unusual, four-person ballot.
The plan worked. This spring, a retired teacher from a tiny fishing village along the Alaska Panhandle, reachable only by air and sea, announced his candidacy for Senate. His name was Dan J. Sullivan.
The Peltola campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in his candidacy. But 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 group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.
The endeavor, which was internally called the ballot composition project, involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative, who traversed the state using a fake name and made his pitch to would-be candidates over beers at brew pubs.
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This article is based on interviews over the past two months with 12 people who participated in or were told of the plan, or were would-be candidates that the team tried to recruit. The Times also obtained dozens of text messages that provided updates on the progress of the effort. The reporting included the extensive interviews with Ms. Rios, during which she shared details of the operation.
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The operation began in the summer of 2025 to lure potential spoiler candidates onto the state’s unusual four-person ballot, Ms. Rios said. In one early meeting, she said, aides with the D.S.C.C. introduced a veteran Democratic operative named Jerid Kurtz to Ms. Rios and Anton McParland, who at the time was Ms. Peltola’s chief of staff. Mr. Kurtz, a native of Ohio, was introduced as a specialist in secret ballot maneuvers, Ms. Rios said.
Months later, in early 2026, Mr. Kurtz participated in a video call with members of the ballot composition team, Ms. Rios said. He told the group he had made contact with one of the Dan Sullivans. This Mr. Sullivan lived in the tiny village of Petersburg, and Mr. Kurtz described him as amenable to running if it would help Ms. Peltola, Ms. Rios said.
Mr. Kurtz “told us when he found him,” she said. He said Mr. Sullivan “said he hated Trump, and if it was going to help Mary, he liked Mary. He didn’t have any interest in being a politician, but if this could help.”
Mr. Sullivan, who has maintained that he entered the race of his own volition, did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the past week.
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Text messages viewed by The Times show officials with the D.S.C.C. and the Peltola campaign communicating for months about the project. Mr. McParland asked for updates from “Jarid,” “Jared” or “our friend,” and D.S.C.C. officials quickly scheduled calls, the messages showed. (Mr. McParland, who was demoted to a consulting role in August, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Ms. Rios regularly participated in the calls. She said the members sometimes chatted casually, and Mr. Kurtz occasionally grew animated when describing his tactics, saying he used pseudonyms and cover stories to keep his activities under wraps.
In late May, just before Mr. Sullivan filed his papers to run, Mr. Kurtz spoke by phone to a Peltola campaign aide, saying he had just gotten off a plane in Petersburg, according to Ms. Rios and another person familiar with the conversation.
The Peltola aides worried at times that Mr. Kurtz’s efforts would be discovered, such as when he posted an image of the Anchorage airport on his Instagram account.
“I am hearing that our friend in the state is being noticed,” Mr. McParland wrote in a text message in January reviewed by The Times. Andrew Piatt, the D.S.C.C.’s director of campaigns, replied: “We will check in.”
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Throughout the spring, the campaign swapped leads with the D.S.C.C. on potential candidates and continued to participate in efforts to shape the ballot.
In one exchange of text messages obtained by The Times, Peltola advisers seemed to make fun of voters while watching a focus group, surmising the participants would be susceptible to being tricked into voting for a ballot spoiler.
“Do we have a scheme for you,” wrote a consultant for the Peltola campaign. A pollster on the chat wrote that one voter seemed like the perfect audience “for our ballot strategy plan :)”
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Even as the Peltola campaign and D.S.C.C. officials denied participation in the operation, the texts and documents reviewed by The Times show it involved the party’s Senate committee and its top law firm. At one point, when Peltola campaign aides toyed with an audacious idea to establish a right-wing state party that could challenge the incumbent senator, they contacted D.S.C.C. officials.
“Imagine if there was a MAGA party!” Mr. McParland, of the Peltola campaign, wrote in January.
“Smart,” replied Mr. Piatt, the D.S.C.C.’s director of campaigns. “Let’s see.”
Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney with the Elias Law Group, the firm that represents both the committee and the Peltola campaign, was part of this effort, according to Ms. Rios. In a text message from April viewed by The Times, a campaign consultant asked Ms. Rios: “Do we need to follow up with Jackie about maga party stuff?”
In another message from that month that misspelled Mr. Kurtz’s first name, Mr. McParland wrote: “Jackie is calling Jarid.” Ms. Lopez did not respond to a request for comment.
The MAGA party plan fizzled out in May.
But in June, the D.S.C.C. celebrated alongside the campaign when an Alaska court cleared the way for the other Dan Sullivan to stay on the ballot.
“Other Dan won, will be on ballot,” Shelbi Dantic, a D.S.C.C. employee, wrote in an internal group chat.
Three people — two Peltola aides and a member of the D.S.C.C. staff — reacted with heart emojis.
Read the full story HERE.