Why is The New York Times out to get Alaska’s Mary Peltola?

 by Andrea Widburg

omething strange is happening in Alaska, and the strangest thing of all may be The New York Times. Twice in the past five weeks, the Times has published devastating investigative reports about Mary Peltola, the Democrat challenging Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in what is shaping up to be a very close race. The first exposed allegations of a nasty, abusive personality behind Peltola’s public image. The second, published just days before the election, exposed a calculated effort by operatives associated with her campaign to manipulate Alaska’s Senate ballot.

Since when did the Times become so interested in exposing a Democrat in a consequential Senate race?

Alaska is gorgeous...magical...amazing, and it also periodically produces some of the ugliest election shenanigans in America. This time, the Democrat Senate candidate’s campaign has been outed for participating in a scheme to confuse voters in a way that could knock out the Republican incumbent. Perhaps the weirdest part of this dirty trick is that the Times has provided the nitty-gritty details.

Dan S. Sullivan is currently the incumbent running for reelection. His Democrat opponent is Mary Peltola, a former House member. But a retired teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. (“Dan J”) is running as an “independent” and could be a spoiler in the race.

With such similar names, rushed or careless voters who intend to vote for Sen. Sullivan may inadvertently vote for Dan J. Given that the race between Peltola and Sen. Sullivan is currently very close, even a relatively small number of mistaken votes could affect the outcome.

That would be bad enough if the similar names were a mere coincidence. What makes it infinitely worse is that this wasn't entirely natural. According to a report in The New York Times, a scheme played out this way:

• In the summer of 2025, aides associated with Peltola instructed a staffer to search Alaska voter records for everyone named Dan Sullivan. Democrat operatives, including political consultant Jerid Kurtz, pursued potential candidates whose presence on the ballot might weaken Sen. Sullivan.


• In the spring of 2026, Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher with little political experience, entered the race. He registered as a Republican shortly before filing, but says he voted for Harris, Biden, and Hillary Clinton


• The Peltola team’s efforts didn’t stop with Dan J. They explored recruiting additional candidates and even establishing a right-wing political party to compete for Republican votes. One idea was to create a MAGA party.


• Text messages implicated Peltola campaign personnel, contacts with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and lawyers associated with the Elias Law Group. (You knew that name would crop up.) When the Alaska court said Dan J could remain on the ballot, people associated with Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC celebrated.

Peltola’s former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, told the Times that Peltola knew about the effort, but wasn’t directly involved. Rios later tried to retract her statements, but the Times reported that other interviews and documents supported its account.

When questioned about what happened, Peltola neither confirmed nor denied her involvement. Instead, she characterized the entire thing as a distraction:

In fact, this is not “a distraction.” It’s a serious and possibly consequential political dirty trick. The Trump Justice Department had already taken preemptive legal steps. Additionally, on October 28, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered the state Department of Public Safety to determine whether the alleged candidate-recruitment scheme violated state election laws.

The whole thing is bizarre. But what strikes me as most strange is the Times’ role. It should be lining up behind Peltola. Instead, it is taking the lead in exposing her. And I don’t just mean exposing her campaign staff’s shenanigans. It’s also exposing her.

In September, before this story heated up, the Times published a savage exposé based on interviews with nine former staffers, more than “20 others in her political orbit,” and “more than 100 screenshots of text messages and other images.”

What emerged was a picture of a woman whom former staffers described as verbally abusive and exceptionally mean-spirited. According to the article:

• Peltola allegedly physically shoved a congressional aide because he didn’t do what she wanted. Her campaign says it was an accidental bump.


• After a woman on a local Planned Parenthood board got her angry, Peltola wrote in a text message, “I hope she dies of a botched abortion.” Peltola supports abortion rights.


• Four former employees said they had heard Peltola refer to people, including staff members, as “faggots,” an anti-homosexual slur. Her campaign denies this.


• Peltola referred to someone who had offended her as “that retard.” The campaign acknowledged this one but said she regretted the language.


• After a tiff with Planned Parenthood (and, again, she’s an abortion advocate), Peltola sent staff a text message ending with “FUCK THOSE BITCHES.”


• Peltola congressional office had the fifth-highest employee turnover in the House in 2023.


• Peltola required congressional employees to care for a family pet, a chameleon named Meatball. Photos corroborated the ensuing search for escaped crickets.

If the allegations are true, Peltola isn’t just a vicious woman, which voters will tolerate in a candidate who does what they want, but she’s also a hypocrite. That is less palatable to voters.

Peltola’s campaign has denied as much of the article as they could, and some former employees have defended her. Nevertheless, the Times considered the evidence sufficiently compelling to publish a lengthy, extremely unflattering investigation.

And that loops around to my starting point: Why is the Times’ Kellen Browning, who wrote both articles, providing so much anti-Peltola fodder in this election? Is it some last gasp of a journalistic instinct that overrides partisan politics? Maybe Browning is just an old-fashioned, good reporter. Or is there something else going on?

I have no idea. I just wonder what’s going on when The New York Times leads the charge against a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, especially in a race that could help determine control of the chamber.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/10/why-is-the-new-york-times-out-to-get-alaska-s-mary-peltola/