Alaska Democrats couldn’t beat Dan Sullivan, so they ran their own

Democrats have finally come to terms with reality and realized their policies are broken and unsellable. But rather than admit it, Democrats in Alaska have decided to fake it. Literally.Alaska’s Dan J. Sullivan, a Democrat-affiliated candidate running under Republican branding with the same name as the state’s sitting Republican senator, may be the party’s most audacious experiment yet.In Alaska’s Senate primary last week, the incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola advanced to November’s general election. So did the other Dan Sullivan, as Alaska’s primary system allows the top four candidates to appear on the ballot in November. But Fraud Dan Sullivan’s campaign was never meant to be a serious or transparent endeavor. Instead, his campaign is the result of decades of Democratic failure and no new ideas from the party. Democrats don’t have any new ideas, and they haven’t for several decades. Fraud Sullivan is the latest example.Fraud Sullivan entered the Senate race three days before the filing deadline, and has repeatedly said he filed to run as a Republican because his dad was “a life-long Republican.” Yet voting records show Fraud Sullivan’s father voted on Democratic primary ballots in 2024 and 2006.Fraud Sullivan’s claimed Republican status would be more believable if his own voting record did not point the other way. He voted for the Democratic nominee in the previous three presidential elections, has never voted for Donald Trump, backed Peltola twice, and donated to her campaigns. He’s even attended at least one “No Kings” protest — not typical Republican behavior.And during a recent visit to Fraud Sullivan’s home, a New York Times reporter noted spotting a refrigerator magnet of Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary. Sullivan brushed it off, saying he didn’t realize the magnet was there “and said perhaps his children had put it there.”But Fraud Sullivan’s campaign has a history of brushing off “accidents” that weren’t so accidental at all, including one at the very start. When he filed for candidacy in May, he initially did so under “Daniel S. Sullivan” — the sitting senator’s name — and has crafted his campaign to be intentionally misleading. Although he quickly changed his filing name to his own legal name, his website design and campaign logo have remained nearly identical to the real Dan Sullivan’s.Not only can the Democrats not come up with new ways to frame their policies, they can’t even think of ways to make their fake “Republican” candidate different from the real one.Fraud Sullivan’s Republican disguise is even harder to take seriously, given Fraud Sullivan’s Democrat advisers. Alaskan Democratic consultant Amber Lee, who has supported Peltola and worked for a number of Democrat candidates, helped Sullivan file for election and even authored metadata on his announcement. Peltola was reportedly in Sullivan’s hometown, Petersburg, which has a population of 3,003, mere days before he announced his candidacy.But Sullivan’s disguise is only one sign of the deeper problem. Peltola herself seems aware of the liability of the national Democratic brand, as she publicly distanced herself from Kamala Harris, even as other national Democrats remained heavily involved in her campaign. Democrats are conscious of the weakness of their own brand. But instead of changing the politics, their strategy seems to be to change the packaging.SHIELD FROM THE MAJORITY IS UNDER ATTACK IN ALASKAAlaska may be the most shameless version of this strategy, but the issue is not confined to the Last Frontier. In Nebraska, Dan Osborn has built his political identity around being an independent instead of fitting into Democrat or Republican molds. But Democratic donors and operatives have increasingly supported his campaign, and Osborn has prioritized a largely progressive agenda.If Democrats believe the best way to advance their politics is to make their agenda look like something else, they’ve already lost. Their problem likely isn’t the ballot, the branding, or the candidate. It’s the agenda.