When Chuck Todd jumped in to defend the Democrats' fake Dan Sullivan scheme in Alaska, he accidentally proved why Mary Peltola could end up behind bars for it.
Last week, the Justice Department sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska to block the state from certifying its Senate results if incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) loses to Peltola, his Democrat challenger.
Democrats were furious, of course, but then, the New York Times reported this week that Democrat operatives aligned with Peltola started hunting in the summer of 2025 for another man named Dan Sullivan to put on the ballot. Their bet was simple: confused voters would drift away from the real senator. Peltola aides reportedly weighed routing money to the new candidates through outside spending and a new super PAC called Alaska Values. They even floated a "MAGA party" to split conservatives before dropping the idea. One of the Times' major sources was Elisa Rios, Peltola's own former campaign manager.
Democrats settled on one defense after the lawsuit dropped: Alaskans can tell the incumbent from the namesake, they say, so any Republican who objects must think voters are stupid.
"And they're giving the game up," Jessica Tarlov said of the DOJ suit. "The fact that the DOJ filed to invalidate the results in Alaska, if Mary Peltola wins, because people, I guess, are too stupid to know what 'Dan Sullivan incumbent' means versus Dan Sullivan […], that's what President Trump is saying by filing that lawsuit."
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The ladies of The View ran the same play. "I don't mean this as dismissive, but they're really only considering Republican voters stupid," Sara Haines said. Whoopi Goldberg chimed in moments later. "I just think it's insane that either side, Democrats or Republicans, think Alaskans are so stupid they can't read 'incumbent,'" she added.
And then Chuck Todd weighed in and really stepped on a rake in the process.
"Careful assuming only one side does these things. See FL GOP and the state senate in 2020," Todd wrote.
He’s not wrong… but how did that story end?
In March 2021, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office charged Frank Artiles, a former Republican state senator, with paying a "ghost candidate" to run in a 2020 race for Senate District 37. Prosecutors said Artiles recruited a friend, Alexis Rodriguez, who shared a last name with the Democrat in the race. Republican Ileana Garcia won by just 32 votes out of more than 215,000 cast.
Rodriguez pulled more than 6,000.
State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle accused Artiles of paying Rodriguez nearly $45,000. "We are alleging these various payments blatantly violated Florida election laws," she told reporters. "These payments were intended to influence the outcome of the election."
A jury found Artiles guilty on three of four counts in September 2024. He got 60 days in jail, five years of probation, and a court order to stay out of politics entirely.
It’s worth noting here that Artiles' ghost candidate only shared a last name with the candidate he sought to siphon votes from. Peltola’s people took their scheme to a whole new level by seeking out a man with the exact same name as the incumbent.
The reactions back then also tell you something. Prosecutors didn't believe Garcia had any role in the plot, yet Florida Democrats demanded she resign immediately and asked the Justice Department to investigate. Republican Senate President Wilton Simpson and Garcia put out a joint statement backing the law enforcement investigation. You don't see Democrats doing anything like that today with Peltola.
So the precedent for prosecution exists, and Todd is the one who dug it up. The only open question is who ultimately gets charged. Will Peltola aides and DSCC staffers take the fall, or will they point the finger at the candidate herself?
Make no mistake about it, Peltola has every reason to be nervous.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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