Ms. Peltola’s campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in the other Mr. Sullivan’s candidacy.Credit…Kerry Tasker/Reuters
The endeavor, internally called the ballot composition project, involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative who traveled the state under a fake name and pitched would-be candidates over beers at brewpubs.
It also involved the Peltola campaign’s lawyers and senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which directs the party’s campaign strategy in Senate races across the country. From Washington to Anchorage, those advisers participated in regular conversations about the effort and even considered forming a new political party to draw conservatives onto the ballot.
Ballot-stacking tactics are common in politics and generally considered legal — and have been employed by both parties in Alaska. But this operation, which has not been reported before, reveals the lengths Democrats went to gain an advantage in a Senate race that could determine control of the chamber.
“Alaskan voters need to know,” said Elisa Rios, Ms. Peltola’s former campaign manager and longtime aide, who was fired amid a staff shake-up in August, and agreed to a series of interviews with The Times since then. “There was a lot of speculation, and voters should get the full picture when making their decisions.”
Ms. Peltola was not directly involved in the project, Ms. Rios said, but she was “definitely aware.”
The operation had impact. On Tuesday, Ms. Peltola will be the only Democrat on the ballot, facing off against the two Mr. Sullivans and a long-shot candidate named Gerald Heikes, who was also recruited into the race, according to The Times’s reporting. Polls give Ms. Peltola a strong chance of winning.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit in federal court at President Trump’s behest last week seeking to block certification of the election results if votes for the other Mr. Sullivan cost Senator Sullivan the win.
Both the Peltola campaign and the D.S.C.C. denied participating in efforts to recruit spoilers to the ballot in Alaska. Neither group addressed a detailed list of questions provided by The Times.
“The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign and did not recruit any candidates into the race,” the campaign wrote in a statement.
The D.S.C.C. sent a similar response, saying it had “no involvement” in recruiting Mr. Sullivan “or any other Republican candidate.”
This article is based on interviews over the past two months with 12 people who participated in or were told of the plan, or were would-be candidates that the team tried to recruit. The Times also obtained dozens of text messages that provided updates on the progress of the effort. The reporting included the extensive interviews with Ms. Rios, during which she shared details of the operation.
Last week, as The Times prepared to publish this article, Ms. Rios, who had been planning to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Peltola campaign, contacted The Times and said she wanted to take back her previous statements.
“As discussed on our call earlier today, I am confirming that I have retracted all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate Race in connection with any article you may or may not be writing,” Ms. Rios wrote. “I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity.”
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.
In addition, Ms. Rios’s interviews were consistent with The Times’s other reporting. She has not filed a lawsuit against the campaign.
“Our Friend” Jerid
The operation began in the summer of 2025 to lure potential spoiler candidates onto the state’s unusual four-person ballot, Ms. Rios said. In one early meeting, she said, aides with the D.S.C.C. introduced a veteran Democratic operative named Jerid Kurtz to Ms. Rios and Anton McParland, who was then Ms. Peltola’s chief of staff. Ms. Rios said Mr. Kurtz, a native of Ohio, was introduced as a specialist in secret ballot maneuvers.
Months later, in early 2026, Mr. Kurtz participated in a video call with members of the ballot composition team, Ms. Rios said. He told the group he had made contact with one of the Dan Sullivans. This Mr. Sullivan lived in the tiny village of Petersburg, and Mr. Kurtz described him as amenable to running if it would help Ms. Peltola, Ms. Rios said.
Mr. Kurtz “told us when he found him,” she said. He said Mr. Sullivan “said he hated Trump, and if it was going to help Mary, he liked Mary. He didn’t have any interest in being a politician, but if this could help.”
Mr. Sullivan, who has maintained that he entered the race of his own volition, did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the past week.
According to Federal Election Commission records, a pro-Peltola super PAC called 49th State PAC paid Wingspan Strategies, a firm co-owned by Mr. Kurtz, about $87,000 this fall. The PAC said in a statement this week it had “never hired or paid Jerid Kurtz for performing any services.”
Mr. Kurtz did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In recent days, he removed his LinkedIn profile from public view and made his X account private.
Text messages viewed by The Times show officials with the D.S.C.C. and the Peltola campaign communicating for months about the project. The messages showed Mr. McParland asking for updates from “Jarid,” “Jared,” or “our friend,” and D.S.C.C. officials quickly scheduling calls. (Mr. McParland, who was demoted to a consulting role in August, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Ms. Rios regularly participated in the calls. She said the members sometimes chatted casually, and Mr. Kurtz occasionally grew animated when describing his tactics, saying he used pseudonyms and cover stories to keep his activities under wraps.
In late May, just before Mr. Sullivan filed his papers to run, Mr. Kurtz spoke by phone to a Peltola campaign aide, saying he had just gotten off a plane in Petersburg, according to Ms. Rios and another person familiar with the conversation.
The Peltola aides worried at times that Mr. Kurtz’s efforts would be discovered, such as when he posted an image of the Anchorage airport on his Instagram account.
“I am hearing that our friend in the state is being noticed,” Mr. McParland wrote in a January text message reviewed by The Times. Andrew Piatt, the D.S.C.C.’s director of campaigns, replied: “We will check in.”
Alaska’s voting system makes it especially easy to add spoilers to the ballot. The state holds nonpartisan primaries, so candidates can claim any party affiliation on the ballot without party vetting. That allowed Mr. Sullivan of Petersburg, a longtime supporter of Ms. Peltola and other Democrats, to land a spot on next week’s ballot.
Republicans have also used this system. When Ms. Peltola ran for re-election to the House two years ago, the state Republican Party backed an effort to help a Democrat — an inmate who ran his campaign from a New York prison — stay on the ballot.
This year, as soon as Mr. Sullivan entered the race, Republicans denounced him as a Democratic plant, but they haven’t been able to prove it. They attempted to remove him from the ballot, arguing that he was not a “good faith” candidate and citing his registration switch from unaffiliated to Republican just before the deadline to run.
In June, the Alaska Supreme Court rejected that argument, ruling there was no basis to remove Mr. Sullivan under state law or the U.S. Constitution.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s lawsuit is still making its way through the courts. Election law experts say the case is dubious, given that states control election administration under the Constitution, and the suit challenges an election that hasn’t happened yet.
