The great John L. Sullivan wasn’t just the first heavyweight champion in modern boxing history — he was the American heavyweight champion. He had heavy hands and an unapologetically star-spangled heart. When Jim Corbett ended his reign in 1892, Sullivan thundered to the crowd, “I fought once too often. But I'm glad that it was an American who beat me and that the championship stays in this country.”
Of course, that was a time when patriotism mattered — and when men of honor put their country ahead of personal ambition.
In World War II, there were the legendary Fighting Sullivans — five brothers who enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Their tragic tale became an Academy Award-nominated 1944 movie. The brothers volunteered 27 days after Pearl Harbor, but insisted on serving together. When their ship, the USS Juneau, was torpedoed by the Japanese, all five Sullivans perished.
One cold January morning in 1943, as Tom Sullivan — their father — was leaving for work, three men in military uniform approached him:
“I have some news for you about your boys.”
“Which one?”
“I’m sorry. All five.”
The movie ends with Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan christening a new ship, the USS The Sullivans, named in honor of their sons. As it sails into the horizon, the boys’ mother turns to their father — with a hole in her heart and a backbone of steel — and says, “Tom, our boys are afloat again.”
It’s either coincidence or irony; you be the judge: The Fighting Sullivans fought, served, and died on the USS Juneau. Juneau is the capital of Alaska, home of the weirdest political race of the 2026 midterms — with dueling Sullivans on the Senate ballot.
But it turns out it was less “weird” than a deliberate, orchestrated scheme by Democrats to deceive voters, suppress Republican support, and rig a Senate election.
Daniel Sullivan is the Republican Senator running for reelection in Alaska. Mary Peltola is his Democratic opponent.
And so is Daniel J. Sullivan, a political newcomer who was mysteriously added to the Alaskan ballot.
Another Daniel Sullivan! In a lightly populated state like Alaska! What are the odds?
Well, the odds are excellent — if you stack the deck. An explosive New York Times report revealed the “Democrats’ secret effort to stack Alaska’s ballot.”
It’s a helluva read. Among The Times’ sources was Mary Peltola’s ex-campaign manager, Elisa Rios. It parallels Graham Platner’s ethical woes being outed by his ex-political director, too. (Memo to candidates: Stop firing people who know all your dirty secrets — or at least make them sign NDAs beforehand! Sheesh!)
“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 [phony Sullivan] 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.
According to The Times, Peltola’s campaign representatives tried to recruit every “Dan Sullivan” in Alaska until one of them agreed to run. It was a naked attempt to tilt the scales by confusing the voters.
Related: Alaska 'Ghost Candidate' Scheme Boomerangs on Democrat As Governor Orders Criminal Investigation
It gets worse: The Democrats actually schemed to launch a fake MAGA political party to further dilute Republican support!
Even as the Peltola campaign and D.S.C.C. [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] officials denied participation in the operation, the texts and documents reviewed by The Times show it involved the party’s Senate committee and its top law firm. At one point, when Peltola campaign aides toyed with an audacious idea to establish a right-wing state party that could challenge the incumbent senator, they contacted D.S.C.C. officials.
“Imagine if there was a MAGA party!” Mr. McParland, of the Peltola campaign, wrote in January.
“Smart,” replied Mr. Piatt, the D.S.C.C.’s director of campaigns. “Let’s see.”
Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney with the Elias Law Group, the firm that represents both the committee and the Peltola campaign, was part of this effort, according to Ms. Rios. In a text message from April viewed by The Times, a campaign consultant asked Ms. Rios: “Do we need to follow up with Jackie about maga party stuff?”
And once again, the same people screaming about “saving democracy” and “democracy is on the ballot” have been caught trying to rig an election.
Is Mary Peltola in deep trouble? You betcha. Even by political standards, this is impressive hypocrisy:
🚨Mary Peltola in August: “It should be a criminal offense to lie or mislead the electorate. YES!” https://t.co/oemOFQJxKZ
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) October 28, 2026
This is why her attempt to dismiss it as a “distraction” to “sell subscriptions” will fall on deaf ears: Too much meat on the bone, babe.
Asking us to ignore our lying eyes won’t work.
She’s dismissing as a “distraction” the story about the fact that she recruited a fake Dan Sullivan to run against the real Senator Dan Sullivan. She literally created a scheme to distract and confuse voters. That’s some serious, end-stage projection.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) October 29, 2026
It didn’t work for Richard Pryor (NSFW). Didn’t work for Groucho Marx. Won’t work for Peltola either.
A dirty trick just exploded in her face, and now she’ll have to deal with the consequences. ‘Cause when you play with fire, sometimes you get burned.
But if the Republicans play their cards right, they can make the fallout go national. Because it DESERVES to go national.
In fact, this ought to be one of the defining issues of the 2026 midterms.
It’s way bigger than Alaska. It’s legitimately a national news story, because this was a brazen attempt to swing control of the Senate by confusing, deceiving, and misleading voters — and also because the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was directly implicated.
The Dan Sullivan Duplication Scheme wasn’t the byproduct of Alaskan operatives going rogue on the frozen tundra of Juneau. The Times has the receipts: Democratic officials were 100% involved!
It’s the damnedest thing: The Democrats keep insisting that Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy — but it’s not Donald Trump who keeps getting caught rigging elections.
The opposite is true: He’s the one pushing for voter IDs and transparency!
The Democrats were just caught red-handed in a lie. It’s the Republicans’ job to maximize the PR damage.
Because democracy isn’t on the ballot — Dan Sullivan is on the ballot. (Heck, he’s on the ballot twice!)
It’s comic book-level villainy. It’s cartoonish and over-the-top. All that’s missing is a twitchy bad guy with a mustache, tying a damsel to the railroad tracks.
The Republican PR playbook should include these five steps:
- Explain the Sullivan Scheme to the public. Make it go viral.
- Connect the national Democratic Party to the scandal.
- Force every Democratic candidate to disavow the DSCC’s actions — especially all the candidates who’ve already accepted its campaign funds.
- Remind voters that this kind of Democratic fraud and/or electoral three-card monte wasn’t a one-off — because right now in Congress, there’s a Democratic representative who was literally sworn into office under a fake name! (Allegedly.) And the Democrats STILL refuse to do anything about it!
- Make Ilhan Omar, Mary Peltola, and Chuck Schumer the three faces of Democratic political corruption. Omar represents immigration chaos, Islamic Socialism, and Democratic fraud; Peltola represents corruption, hypocrisy, and not giving a damn about democracy; Schumer, the least-popular politician in America, ties it all together nationally.
And then pivot to the SAVE America Act, where the Republicans tried to protect our democracy, and the Democratic opposition killed it. Communicated effectively, it’s part and parcel of the exact same PR story.
The Democrats aren’t democratic. They lie, cheat, deceive, and steal to win.
“Too many Caesars is not good,” advised philosopher Arius Didymus. It was true 2,000 years ago and it’s true today.
Too many Dan Sullivans isn’t good, either. Not for democracy, and not for our country.
One Last Thing: 2026 will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the future of our country teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Blue wave or red wall, the 2026 midterms will be a gamechanger.
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