The Radical Reading Room

A New York Times investigation published Wednesday alleged that people connected to Mary Peltola’s campaign helped recruit Daniel J. Sullivan, a candidate sharing the name of Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, for Alaska’s Senate race. The report described the effort as an attempt to draw votes from the incumbent. Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement in the namesake candidate’s run; Daniel J. Sullivan has also denied an association with the campaign.

The reporting traced the effort to 2025, when Peltola allies began looking for Alaskans named Dan Sullivan who might run for Senate. It described Democratic operative Jerid Kurtz meeting potential candidates. The investigation said he found Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher in Petersburg, who entered the race. The account is an allegation about recruitment, not a finding by a court or election authority.

Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, provided an account to the Times after she was fired in August, according to the reports. She said Peltola knew about the effort, then later tried to withdraw her statements. The Times said its reporting also drew on text exchanges and other evidence, including messages that stretched across several months.

The campaign’s denial and Rios’s attempt to retract her remarks leave competing accounts in the record. The coverage does not establish that voters were confused or that the alleged recruitment changed the race’s outcome. It documents a reported effort to recruit candidates and the evidence the newspaper cited for that account, while those implicated have denied involvement or disputed parts of it.