Has ‘Fake’ Alaska Senate Candidate ‘Disappeared’ Amid FBI Recruitment Probe?

Gladhanders hoping to get a moment with Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. while standing in poll lines Tuesday aren’t likely to get a handshake as the candidate has largely vanished from public view in the runup to Alaska’s Senate election. For months all attention has been on whether confusion will reign at the ballot box over Mr. Sullivan Jr.’s sharing a similar name on the ranked-choice ballot with incumbent Dan S. Sullivan, causing the vote to split and rewarding Democrat Mary Peltola with a Senate victory. Mr. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher, has not been much of a campaigner this election season. He has not posted on his Facebook page, which has 760 followers, since September 30. His Instagram account has no posts at all. CBS News reported that a local resident last spotted him on Monday, October 26. The disappearing act follows a New York Times report last week that Mr. Sullivan Jr. was recruited to run by Democratic operatives linked to Ms. Peltola’s campaign. The Peltola campaign has denied any involvement. That hasn’t stopped Republicans, including President Trump, from speculating that Mr. Sullivan Jr. was whisked away by Democratic lawyers days before the state’s pivotal election. “FAKE ALASKA CANDIDATE DANIAL J. SULLIVAN, JR., IS MISSING IN ACTION! HE HAS TOTALLY DISAPPEARED, GONE!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO FIND HIM. MAYBE HE HAS BEEN ‘KIDNAPPED’ BY THE CORRUPT DUMOCRAT LAWYERS??? THEY ARE SCARED STIFF OF BEING PROSECUTED FOR ELECTION FRAUD!!!” In another post Monday, Mr. Trump claimed the “reason nobody can find the FAKE Dan Sullivan is that the Lawyers have ‘scooped’ him up, and are hiding him as they teach him, step by step, what to say in order to avoid one of the Greatest Fraud Prosecutions in American History!”Senator Dan. S. Sullivan also offered his own theory about Mr. Sullivan Jr.’s absence from the campaign trail. “The decoy guy, who evidently fled to the Bahamas or something, is on the ballot. He’s not campaigning,” he said during his closing arguments on Monday. “The scheme is working. Alaskans, do not let the scheme work.” The four-way race remains a toss-up, with Ms. Peltola holding a narrow lead over Senator Sullivan, according to polls released in the final days of campaign season. An average of recent polling puts Ms. Peltola above Mr. Sullivan by a one-point margin. However, the last poll released on Monday, after the Times report, found the two tied squarely at 48 percent in the first round with Mr. Sullivan Jr. earning two percent of the vote and another Republican, Gerald Heikes, pulling 0.5 percent. In Alaska’s ranked-choice system, voters are asked to elect their candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives 50-plus-one percent of the vote on the first ballot, the lowest-earning candidate is dropped off and the second-choice is tabulated. This continues until a candidate earns a definitive majority. Where the lower candidates’ votes would go in the second and third rounds is the source of consternation for the Justice Department, which launched a criminal probe and a civil lawsuit seeking to block certification of the election results should Senator Sullivan narrowly lose. A federal judge tossed the civil suit on Sunday.The confusion may already have shown up at the polls. In footage captured by NewsNation, voter Greg Martone admitted he may have accidentally voted for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. instead of the incumbent senator he intended to support. “I might just be having a brain freeze, but I don’t remember the second Dan Sullivan,” he said, adding, “I’m hoping he [Senator Sullivan] was on top.”Ms. Peltola has vehemently denied the candidate’s involvement in the Sullivan campaign, with her spokeswoman telling Newsweek that she is more “focused on lowering costs and fixing the rigged system in D.C.” The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee similarly told ABC News it is “not involved with Dan J. Sullivan.”Asked about the “fake” label in October, the other Mr. Sullivan pushed back to HuffPost: “How could I be a fake Dan Sullivan? That is my real name!” While that is not the source of dispute, concern is percolating over whether recruiting a candidate to confuse voters is legal.In the runup to the race, the Justice Department issued a new round of subpoenas targeting Democratic officials believed to be tied to the recruitment effort. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the episode “cheating” and “fraud” in a recent Fox News interview. Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered a separate state investigation, saying Alaskans “deserve the truth” and have “a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support.”Standing outside Mr. Sullivan’s house for more than two days last week, a conservative influencer, Nick Sortor, who has ties to the Trump administration, said on X he “couldn’t detect even the slightest movements.” Mr. Sortor alleged Mr. Sullivan had since boarded a flight out of state after learning of the Times report.

Has ‘Fake’ Alaska Senate Candidate ‘Disappeared’ Amid FBI Recruitment Probe?

Has ‘Fake’ Alaska Senate Candidate ‘Disappeared’ Amid FBI Recruitment Probe?

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