Alaska’s Ballot-Stacking Scandal Demands A Grand Jury
By Peter Navarro | October 30, 2026
The Democrats trying to steal a Senate seat in Alaska — from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee down to Mary Peltola’s own campaign — have been caught with their hands in the election-interference jar. And it took the liberal New York Times, no less, to catch them.
The Times found an organized operation to stack the Alaska ballot with a second “Dan Sullivan” to confuse voters and hand Peltola a seat she could not win straight up. With public confidence in our elections already battered, this is a wrecking ball. Control of the United States Senate may well hang in the balance.
This one hits me personally. I lost an election to a similar trick.
In 1993, I ran for the San Diego City Council. In what was a two-man race, I was a lock to clear 50 percent in the primary and win outright. So the opposition recruited a third candidate. She forced a runoff. I lost by 825 votes.
This was despicable, but not illegal. Alaska is different.
This was a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Democratic Party to seize majority control of the Senate by stealing a seat in an otherwise Republican state.
According to the Times, it began in 2025 when Peltola campaign aides combed voter records for Alaskans named Dan Sullivan — the name of the sitting Republican senator. Democratic operative Jerid Kurtz then crisscrossed the state pitching would-be candidates, sometimes under an assumed name. Peltola advisers and DSCC officials traded updates on what they called a ballot-composition project.
It worked. A retired teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. filed. A Democrat was nudged out. Republican Gerald Heikes was nudged in. The result: a four-name ballot with two Sullivans, built to bleed the real one.
The Times has the text messages. It interviewed 12 people who took part in the operation or were approached by it. Peltola’s former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, told the paper her boss was “definitely aware” of the project.