Trump Accuses Dems Of ‘Fake’ Candidate Scheme In Crucial Senate Race

WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump accused Democrats on Wednesday of orchestrating a “fake” candidate scheme in Alaska’s Senate race, saying they recruited a challenger with the same name as Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan to confuse voters.

Trump’s accusations followed a New York Times investigation reporting that Democratic operatives worked with aides to Sullivan’s Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, to recruit a second Dan Sullivan. Peltola’s campaign denied involvement in a statement to The Daily Wire.

“It has just been determined that the Democrats in Alaska illegally searched for, and recruited, a man named Dan Sullivan to run against our distinguished Republican Senator, Dan Sullivan, in order to defraud, confuse, and obfuscate the Election, thereby taking votes away from the REAL Senator, Dan Sullivan,” Trump said.

The president also accused Democrats of lying under oath and demanded that Peltola and the second Sullivan be removed from the ballot.

“The Democrats’ false statements were made under oath in Federal Court,” the president added. “Therefore, they perjured themselves, and should be liable for very serious consequences. Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot.”

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The Times investigation, published Wednesday, described a “ballot composition project” involving Peltola campaign staff, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) officials, political consultants, and an operative who traveled through Alaska using a false name to recruit potential candidates.

Campaign signage for Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, and former Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat from Alaska and US Senate candidate, ahead of the midterm election in Anchorage, Alaska, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026.  Photographer: Nathaniel Wilder/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign,” a spokesman told The Daily Wire on Wednesday afternoon. “Like Mary, our campaign is focused on lowering costs and fixing the rigged system in DC.”

The campaign also accused Republicans of propping up third-party candidates in Alaska and said they had a history of recruiting “spoiler” candidates dating back to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

A spokesman for Sen. Dan S. Sullivan’s campaign told The Daily Wire that “Alaskans deserve the truth,” arguing that Republicans always knew that this was a “concerted effort to deceive Alaskans” and that Peltola herself was “hoping it would stay covered up until after the election.”

“Mary Peltola, her campaign, and her senior advisors colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers, and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit candidates to deliberately deceive and confuse voters, and then repeatedly lied about it,” spokesman Nate Adams said on Wednesday.

“Not one player in this operation has acted in good faith with Alaska voters,” he added. “Mary Peltola and her campaign have spent months gaslighting Alaskans, denying a scheme they were running all along.”

Tim Scott, the National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman, promised Wednesday that Peltola would be held accountable for her “dishonesty and deception.”

“Alaskans will leave Peltola unranked on the ballot because of her dirty tricks,” he said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “Voters can trust the real Dan Sullivan, and I’m confident he’ll be re-elected.”

Nick Begich, Alaska’s only member of the House of Representatives, told The Daily Wire that he was deeply concerned by the New York Times reporting, calling the news “everything Americans rightly hate about politics.”

“There are many concerns raised by this reporting,” he said, “direct coordination between a campaign and SuperPACs, active work and spending for a Senate campaign that had not yet launched, intentional attempts made to confuse voters about which candidate they would be voting for, deceptive practices by the national campaign committee even going so far as to conceal and falsify their identity from candidates being recruited, and lies from the campaign to the press about their involvement in these efforts.”