BAKED ALASKA: Sunday Shows Downplay ‘Decoy Dan’ Scandal

Jorge Bonilla
November 1st, 2026 8:36 PM

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Across the dial, the Elittist Media Sunday Shows actively sought to downplay the massive “Two Dans” scandal coming out of Alaska, which was broken wide open by a story from The New York Times. The media continue to try to soften the gravity of this scandal by insisting on the legality of the strategy.

Watch as NBC’s Kristen Welker insists on the question of whether NRSC Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) would accept the results of the Alaska election while avoiding the legal questions surrounding the scandal:

 

 

KRISTEN WELKER: I want to turn to Dan Sullivan, his race in Alaska, The New York Times reporting the campaign of Mary Peltola the Democratic candidate was involved in the effort to get another man named Dan Sullivan on the ballot, Peltola denies any involvement. President Trump has called for prosecutions, I know that you have said that Peltola should be held accountable, you’re calling for investigation. If Mary Peltola wins, Senator, if the race is certified, will you accept those results?

TIM SCOTT: Well, Dan Sullivan is going to win, Kristen, you know that and I do because it's the truth, because what I can tell you is you can't trust Mary Peltola's campaign and the collusion between her campaign and the DSCC. Listen: it is immoral in my opinion for a candidate to lie about who they are. I think it's unethical for a candidate to lie about their opponent. But we know that it is criminal for candidates to work in collusion with other parties to confuse voters and that's exactly what “Decoy Dan” has done in Alaska. Let me give you three examples. Quickly. Number one, he has mimicked every piece of Dan Sullivan's campaign: the logo, the colors, the font. Number two: he tried to change his middle initial to the exact same middle initial of the real Dan Sullivan, and number three: Alaskan voters will hold them accountable and elect the real Dan Sullivan to be the continuing senator.

WELKER: Well, even DoJ officials have said they’re not sure there's criminal activity, that’s what they’re looking into. But just to go back to my original question, Senator, if Mary Peltola wins, if the election is certified, will you accept the results of that race?

SCOTT: Kristen, two things. Number one, Dan Sullivan, the real Dan Sullivan will win and number two, it actually is a federal offense to confuse voters. That's the law, and that's why you've seen the Department of Justice ask for- send out 30 subpoenas. So what we will find out quickly is who all was involved in this attempt to confuse the voters. It's okay to expand the ballot, but it's not okay to confuse the voters.Senator, you’ve also seen Alaska's Republican attorney general asking the federal government to permanently drop the, quote, “meritless lawsuit that seeks to block the certification of the election results.” Should these decisions be left to the states as the Constitution requires, Senator?

SCOTT: Well, the governor has been clear, he is opening an investigation as well. I think there's no doubt that our voting rights are absolutely important in this country. Confusing and deceiving voters- not right. Also, if you’re confusing voters, it’s illegal. All right. Well, again, DoJ has said they’re not sure that there’s anything illegal about it. They are looking into it, though.

Welker had no interest in the issue beyond trying to pin Scott down on an “election denialism” angle. Scott came prepared and countered by getting into some of the more egregious details of the “Decoy Dan” operation. As Welker demonstrates, election interference doesn’t seem to be such a big deal to the media elites unless it is their preferred candidates being interfered against.

Over at CBS, “election law expert” David Becker joined in the downplay of the seriousness of “Decoy Dan”, attempting a whatabout by equating it with Elon Musk’s alleged “bankrolling” of Cornel West in 2024:

 

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DAVID BECKER: There’s dirty pool. Both parties do this. It shouldn’t happen. Right now in Nevada, there are two candidates named Ford running for governor. We’re not sure what the circumstances of that are, one is the major Democratic candidate. We've seen Elon Musk bankroll Cornell West’s presidential campaign in 2024. These kinds of things shouldn’t happen. I don’t think there’s any question. But it’s pretty normal politics, unfortunately. And Alaska’s state courts and Alaska law has already ruled on this.

Here’s another guy who always preens about threats to Democracy™, but says that there’s nothing to see here as Alaskan voters are potentially being disenfranchised.

More of the same at ABC, where the scandal was downplayed on This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

 

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Control of the Senate could come down to the state of Alaska. A state Trump won by more than ten points, where ranked-choice voting means the results may not be known for weeks.Trevor Ault is in Anchorage.Good morning, Trevor.

TREVOR AULT: Good morning, George.Yes, this is a state that has suddenly had a lot of action. A state that President Trump won by 13 points in 2024. But we have this neck and neck Senate race between the Democrat, Mary Peltola, and the incumbent Republican, Dan Sullivan. And we also have this extra Dan Sullivan that’s also on the ballot. And that has been a lightning rod in recent days, as reporting by “The New York Times” allegedly claimed that the Peltola campaign recruited that second Dan Sullivan to get on the ballot to try to siphon some votes away from the incumbent.Now not only did that prompt the Department of Justice to file another lawsuit a few days ago, but now federal officials say they have opened a criminal investigation to try to figure out if there's been any wrongdoing here.Now, it isn't clear what law may have been broken in this criminal investigation. The process of ballot stacking has been happening for quite some time in Alaska by both parties, and pretty much all the legal experts that we spoke to said it would not be illegal to recruit another Dan Sullivan to join the ballot.Now, Peltola's campaign has denied that they recruited the second Dan Sullivan. And we did finally hear from Mary Peltola. She says she has no idea if her campaign recruited this other Dan Sullivan. But she says if they did, she had no idea that it had happened. And she claims that she believes she can win entirely on her own merits, that she doesn't need any tricks, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Trevor, do you have a sense of how much this controversy is cutting in the final days?

AULT: I would say, based on the voters that I've talked to, George, it doesn't be -- it doesn't seem to really be swinging the needle a ton. I would definitely say the voters are not really buying the denials from the Peltola campaign. And they do think that the process, the practice of it is a little bit shady, but they're not really treating this as a massive scandal.One of the main reasons is because this doesn't really seem new to them. The second Dan Sullivan has been on the ballot and they've known about it for months. He was on the ballot already in the primary. It was litigated in that instance.I would also say that a lot of these voters that I'm talking to don't really think it's that clever of a scheme. They think it's pretty obvious which Dan Sullivan is the incumbent as it's labeled on the ballot.Now I would vote for Republicans who are concerned about this practice, Alaska's ranked choice voting actually makes it even less likely that the second Dan Sullivan could serve as a spoiler, because in all likelihood, he'd get eliminated in an early round and we would eventually just go to that one-on-one, head-to-head Mary Peltola versus Dan Sullivan.Maybe most importantly, though, George, it is possible that control of the Senate could come down to Alaska. And in that instance, Alaska's polls on election night don't close until 1:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and then they accept mail-in ballots going two weeks after election day. They historically take a very long time to call these races, including -- especially close ones like we're seeing here.If the control of the Senate comes down to this, we could be in for an agonizing wait that could take weeks, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No question about it. Trevor Ault, thanks very much.

Trevor Ault and George Stephanopoulos showed more concern over the time it may take to call some of these races than the scandal itself. The pattern is clear: downplay, obfuscate, say that it’s legal, and ignore the facts of what was exposed by The New York Times.

Over at CNN, Jake Tapper tried to both-sides Sen. Dan Sullivan, the target of this chicanery. Sullivan was ready.

 

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JAKE TAPPER: They note that, during this year's primary, the Senate primary, a group funded by the top Republican super PAC -- this is not you, but this is the top Republican super PAC -- spent more than $800,000 boosting -- boosting a different Democratic candidate and a Green Party candidate, neither of them living in Alaska, and the goal presumably was to draw more Democratic votes away from Mary Peltola in the general. Some of the money came from Last Frontier PAC, which supports you. And I wonder, what- what's your response when people say, look, this is ugly, but it's a part of politics, and Republicans were trying to do it too?

DAN SULLIVAN: Yes, here's my response to that. I don't do it. I haven't done it. You know me, Jake. That's not my style. That's not what I would do. And the reason I wouldn't do it is because I respect the people I represent. And Mary Peltola and her staff and the DSCC are directly involved. "The New York Times" has the receipts. I encourage all Alaskans to read the story.

It is a breathtaking smoking gun that Peltola, her team, Schumer, his team had as their first order of business, not to run on their record, because I got a way better record than Mary Peltola, not to run on their vision for what's good for Alaska, because national D.C. Democrats always are about shutting down our economy, killing our oil and gas sector, crushing our military, killing thousands of jobs. So they said, we have to have as a first order business is to figure out how to cheat and deceive Alaskans. And that is the facts, and that is what they have done. By the way, their scheme is working. They got the decoy guy on the ballot. I'm sure I'm going to lose a lot of votes to that trickery.

So what I say to Alaskans is, don't let them get away with the tricks. Get out the vote. Vote for the honest senator. We have truth on our side, Jake. We have truth on our side, and that's why I'm going to win. 

These media types are the same people that spent the better part of the last six years lecturing America about defending Democracy™. Yet they remain silent in the wake of what appears to be a conspiracy to deceive voters, potentially interfering with their right to vote. 

If it weren't for double standards there would be none at all,

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