Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the exact same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan, both of whom will appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Republicans have condemned the presence in the race of two candidates named Dan Sullivan – one the two-term US senator, the second a retiree living in south-eastern Alaska with scant political experience – calling the newcomer a ploy by Democrats to cost the incumbent re-election by splitting his supporters.

Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement with the other Dan Sullivan, but the Times reports that her officials together with the party’s campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), worked to find other people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska, and encourage them to run. Their reporting is based on interviews with Peltola’s former campaign manager and other sources, together with documents and text messages related to the recruitment effort.

“Alaskan voters need to know,” Elisa Rios, whom Peltola fired in August, told the Times, which added that she later tried to retract her interview with the outlet.

Nate Adams, a spokesperson for Sullivan’s campaign, said: “Alaskans deserve the truth.”

“Not one player in this operation has acted in good faith with Alaska voters. Mary Peltola and her campaign have spent months gaslighting Alaskans, denying a scheme they were running all along. We always knew this was a concerted effort to deceive Alaskans, and Mary Peltola was hoping it would stay covered up until after the election,” he added.

Donald Trump shared a link to the Times’s article on Truth Social, calling it proof of “election fraud”.

“I don’t think Mary Peltola, after perpetrating such a terrible scheme, should be allowed to run,” he added. Last week, he acknowledged ordering the justice department to file a lawsuit attempting to block the certification of the election results, if Sullivan loses.

A spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign said: “The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign. Like Mary, our campaign is focused on lowering costs and fixing the rigged system in DC.”

Sullivan’s bid for a third term in the US Senate against Peltola, a former US congresswoman, is one of the most important contests of next week’s midterm elections. Alaska is one of a handful of states with Senate races this year that Democrats are targeting in order to win back a majority in the chamber, where they hold 47 seats to the GOP’s 53, and recent polls have shown Peltola in the lead.

Election authorities in the state attempted to disqualify the other Dan Sullivan before the August primary, but the state supreme court ruled that he can appear on the ballot. Together with Sullivan and Peltola, the challenger was one of the top four vote-getters in the nonpartisan primary.

On the general election ballot, the senator will be listed as “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent” and the challenger “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.”

At a rally in Alaska this month, Trump urged the senator’s supporters to vote for the “real” Dan Sullivan, and warned that errant votes for the challenger could cost the senator re-election.

“The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan,” a spokesperson for the Democratic Senate campaign arm said. They added that “Republicans have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates in an attempt to boost their own campaigns”, including in Alaska’s and Ohio’s Senate races this year, and in previous elections in North Carolina and Montana.

The Times reports that Democrats began considering ways to get a spoiler candidate onto the midterm ballot in the summer of 2025. The DSCC introduced the Peltola campaign to a political operative and Ohio native named Jerid Kurtz, who specialized in such activities, which are typically legal. The aide unsuccessfully approached another potential candidate, who did not share a name with the senator, and ultimately recruited the other Dan Sullivan, the Times reports.

Peltola campaign officials also discussed with the DSCC creating a rightwing party to field a candidate in a race, but that did not pan out, according to the Times. After a second Democrat advanced through the August primary, the operative met with him and convinced him to drop out. He was replaced on the ballot by another Republican, Gerald Heikes, who told the Times he was recruited to run “by a guy from the midwest”, though the person did not resemble the Democratic operative from Ohio.

Heikes is a perennial candidate, who has previously run unsuccessfully for governor, US senator and House representative.