Dem Mary Peltola doesn’t fully deny involvement in ‘Decoy Dan’ scheme to confuse Alaska voters

WASHINGTON — Alaska Senate hopeful Mary Peltola refrained from issuing an unequivocal denial of involvement in the effort to recruit another Dan Sullivan into the race — even as her campaign, which fired a lot of its original staff — distanced itself.

Instead, Peltola lashed out at the press for coverage of her team’s alleged involvement in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan, also known as “Decoy Dan,” into the Alaska Senate race to confuse incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R) voters.

“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion. Every day it’s some new, you know, look over here moment. Not Dan Sullivan, registered Republican incumbent. Voted for this war. And I 14 times,” she raged at an event in Soldotna, captured by freelance reporter Matt Tunseth.

“Anybody who’s working in our best interest isn’t going to talk about the nonsense. This is all stuff to sell newspapers,” she added. “This is all stuff to get subscriptions. Nobody at the New York Times cares about affordability in Alaska.”

Peltola’s campaign has been rocked by a bombshell report in the New York Times about her team’s efforts to find a man with the same name as her rival to run.

“Alaskan voters need to know,” Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager, who was ousted during a staff overhaul in August, told the outlet.

“There was a lot of speculation, and voters should get the full picture when making their decisions,” she continued, explaining that while Peltola was not directly involved in the recruitment effort, she was “definitely aware.”

The outlet cited about a dozen sources and text messages it reviewed indicating that Peltola’s team was behind the recruitment of “Decoy Dan,” a retired public school teacher running as a Republican, despite voting for Democrats in recent presidential elections.

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

But the question is whether the campaign previously had involvement with the recruitment of “Decoy Dan.” Additionally, Alaskans for Mary filed its statement of organization in January, after many of the key developments in the bombshell report supposedly took place.

After the revelations emerged, Republicans needled Peltola with an old video of her saying that “it should be a criminal offense to lie or mislead the electorate.”

In the wake of the bombshell report, the Justice Department has been ramping up its probe into whether or not Democrats attempted to confuse voters.

The Justice Department has already filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking certification of the election if Sen. Sullivan loses, complaining that his defeat may be unfair in light of “Decoy Dan” being in the race.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) also announced that he is ordering a criminal investigation into the matter.

Peltola has a 1.2-point edge over Sen. Sullivan in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. President Trump blasted Peltola in response and suggested that she should be taken off the ballot. The Justice Department is also ramping up a criminal investigation.

She finished first in the open primary held in August. The Nov. 3 election features a four-person ballot in which the winner is determined through ranked-choice voting.

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