Times reports Democrats worked to recruit Alaska's second Dan Sullivan and other spoilers

The New York Times reported Wednesday that aides to Democrat Mary Peltola worked with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee officials on a "ballot composition project" to recruit spoiler candidates into Alaska's U.S. Senate race, including Daniel J. Sullivan of Petersburg. Peltola's campaign said it "did not recruit any candidates into the race," and the DSCC also denied it. Sullivan has said he entered the race on his own.

President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Sen. Dan Sullivan, wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday that Democrats "found a man named Dan Sullivan, put him on the Ballot, then lied to the Court, and said they didn't know anything about it. That's perjury." He called it "ELECTION FRAUD" and said neither Peltola nor "the FAKE Dan Sullivan" should be allowed to run.

No court has found the effort illegal. In the Justice Department's lawsuit over Sullivan's candidacy, lawyers for Peltola's campaign and the DSCC wrote that they didn't know enough to say whether Sullivan ran to help Peltola, and so denied it. That filing wasn't sworn, and the filings Alaska News reviewed contain no sworn denial from either group.

At the center of the Times' account is Jerid Kurtz, a Democratic operative from Ohio who the paper says recruited candidates for the effort. Peltola's former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, told the Times that early this year Kurtz told the team on a video call that he had made contact with the Petersburg Sullivan, who he described as amenable to running if it would help Peltola.

In late May, just before Daniel J. Sullivan filed, Kurtz spoke by phone with a Peltola campaign aide and said he had just gotten off a plane in Petersburg, according to Rios and another person familiar with the conversation.

Neither Kurtz nor Daniel J. Sullivan responded to the Times. In June, the Sullivan from Petersberg told The Associated Press he'd had no contact with Peltola's campaign: "zero, none, zilch." He also said "no" when asked whether anyone from the state Democratic Party or any national Democratic operatives had contacted him to run.

Much of the Times' account comes from Rios, who was fired in August and asked last week to retract her interviews. The Times said her account matched its other reporting. The story draws on interviews with 12 people and text messages the paper reviewed.

The account goes beyond Sullivan. Democrat David Leslie told the paper that Kurtz was among those who urged him to drop out after the Aug. 18 primary. "I'm really proud of the action you took today," Kurtz texted him the day he withdrew. That opened the fourth ballot spot to Republican Gerald Heikes, who told the Times he was recruited this spring by "a guy from the Midwest" he didn't think was Kurtz.

Rios also told the Times that Jim Lottsfeldt, a consultant who works with pro-Peltola super PACs, agreed in March to lead outside spending for long-shot candidates. His name is on requests for radio time this month from Alaska Values, a super PAC supporting Heikes, according to the Times and station files Alaska News reviewed. Lottsfeldt denied any involvement and told the Times his name may have ended up on the forms by mistake.

Alaska Values, which hasn't disclosed its donors, has spent about $710,000 urging Alaskans to rank Heikes first and leave Sen. Dan Sullivan blank. In the primary, a separate group, Right for Alaska, spent about $700,000 supporting Heikes. Its biggest funders were Liberty Force Action Fund of Virginia and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, whose website reads "Empowering Progressive Changemakers." The Times doesn't mention Right for Alaska.

Republicans have accused Democrats of planting Daniel J. Sullivan since June. That month, acting on complaints filed for the Alaska Republican Party's chair, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher rejected his filing as not made in good faith and designed to confuse voters. Among her reasons was a consultant on his campaign who she said was a longtime supporter of Democratic candidates. A Superior Court judge ruled that she had applied a "good faith" standard found nowhere in state law, and the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed, putting him back on the ballot. The consultant, Amber Lee, doesn't appear in the Times' story.

Ballot-stacking is common and generally legal, the Times noted, and both parties have used it in Alaska. In 2024, the state Republican Party backed an effort to keep a Democrat running from a New York prison on the ballot against Peltola. He's on this year's House ballot, too.

None of it changes the ballot. The deadline to replace a candidate was Aug. 31, and Alaskans had cast more than 46,000 ballots by Monday, according to the AP. Election Day is Tuesday.

Legal experts told the AP the Times report won't affect the Justice Department's lawsuit, which seeks to hold up certification if the second Sullivan's votes cost the senator the race. In Anchorage, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason planned to decide by Wednesday evening whether Peltola's campaign and voter groups can join that lawsuit.