By Emily Seidel
Less than a week before Election Day, The New York Times reported that people working with Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign and senior staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent months on what they called a “ballot composition project.” They recruited spoiler candidates, including a second Dan Sullivan, to intentionally confuse voters who would otherwise vote to reelect Senator Dan Sullivan, so he would lose the election. The reporting describes a paid political operative using a fake name and campaign advisers watching a focus group and joking about which voters might fall for it.
The Peltola campaign and the DSCC deny involvement, but they have not addressed the specific accusations. The reporting is built on text messages, documents and interviews with 12 people. It can’t be waved away. But with less than one week to go and many ballots already in, stonewalling just might work. And while they may get away with duping voters, it’s our democracy that will suffer.
Don’t get me wrong. We’ve seen plenty of bad faith efforts from both parties in the past. In 2020, GOP operatives helped get Kanye West onto the presidential ballot in an apparent attempt to pull votes from Joe Biden. That was wrong. But what sets Alaska apart is how blatant it was, the apparent coordination with a national party committee, and the receipts.
The President and Alaska’s Governor are asking whether any of this broke the law. But the more fundamental question is: Can our democracy survive this kind of behavior? And what are we as a country going to do about it?
Our democracy requires elections that are free and fair. But equally important, it requires that people believe them to be. Schemes like this, from either party, give people one more reason to doubt that they are. Those on the political left have been right to raise the alarm about false claims of stolen elections. What will they do to hold their own accountable in the face of what looks to be compelling evidence of a concerted attempt to fool voters, undermining trust in our democracy?
For years, Democrats have made protecting democracy a central promise. But in Alaska, a Peltola win would hand them a Senate seat and perhaps the Senate majority. Will they stand by their promise if by breaking it, they win?
AFP Action is supporting Dan Sullivan in Tuesday’s election. And we’ll be disappointed if he loses, to say the least. But what’s more troubling is the damage that will be done if those who have claimed to stand for democracy stay silent. This can be a turning point — a moment to stop the downward spiral where the bad actions of one party justify the bad actions of the other.
If you’re a Republican and you’re incensed about Alaska, you should be. But that outrage only carries weight if you apply it to your own. Commit today to root out these kinds of dirty tricks in Republican campaigns. Fire consultants who act this way. And if you’re a Democrat or activist on the political left who has claimed the mantle of democracy’s defender, Alaska is where that claim gets tested. Have the courage to condemn what’s been reported. Hold those who looked the other way accountable. And take real steps to keep it out of future campaigns. Defending democracy can’t mean defending it only from the other side.
Alaska should be a wake-up call for all of us. Not just the political parties. Gallup has annually rated trust in institutions, ranging from Congress and the presidency, to the Supreme Court, to schools, newspapers, the military, and other public and private sector entities. All but two are at or near their all-time lows. All of us need to take a hard look at how our politics have contributed to Americans losing trust in key institutions.
People lose trust when leaders attack the motives of judges instead of engaging with their reasoning. They lose trust when groups treat courts as legitimate only when they go a certain way. Or when leaders treat people who disagree as enemies to be silenced and treat losing as proof the game was rigged. If that’s you or groups you support, cut it out.
This clown scheme in Alaska is where that kind of behavior leads: a months-long “ballot composition project” to win an election not by persuading voters that the candidate’s ideas are better, but by trying to confuse them into voting for the wrong Dan Sullivan. That isn’t winning an argument, it’s running from one.
If you care about trust in our elections, prove it. Speak up, no matter which side you’re on. They may have gotten away with it this time. But if we’re ever going to get out of this downward spiral, we have to hold people to a higher standard. America is better than this and American voters deserve better than this.