In Alaska, the World’s Least Surprising Scoop

Sometimes, journalists break news that surprises us and changes what people believe and how they see people and situations. But sometimes, it just takes work to nail down with evidence what everybody already assumed to be true. Credit where credit is due to Kellen Browning of the New York Times for a story reporting that of course Democrats have been lying all along when they claimed to have nothing to do with the False Dan Sullivan dirty trick in the Alaska Senate race.

As Browning reports:

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.

Browning’s conclusion about this effort, which also involved “senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee” and lawyers at the Elias Law Group: “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.”

It’s unusual for this kind of thing to get out, given the tightly disciplined nature of Democratic campaign machines. But Browning got confirmation on the record from Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, who was sacked in August and has been talking to the Times since then, including a story in August written by Browning and Tim Balk painting Peltola in unflattering terms as a boss and dishing dirt on her views behind the scenes. In an equally dramatic last-minute twist, Browning tells us that Rios told the Times last week that she was retracting her statements, but the Times went ahead with the story: “It is rare for a source to seek to retract comments made in previous interviews, and The Times’s standards do not obligate reporters to comply with such requests. The Times had never agreed that those previous interviews could not be published, and informed Ms. Rios last week that they would be a part of this story.” Rios has been planning a wrongful termination suit against the campaign, which has not yet been filed, and one can only wonder if she reached a quiet settlement (the campaign having a major interest in paying her off to keep quiet). Browning recites that the campaign and the DSCC are still denying everything and refusing to answer detailed questions. But he has more than just the word of Rios. Among other things, he has text messages:

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.

Anyway, kudos to Browning and the Times for not letting Rios kill the story after they’d confirmed it.