The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Democratic operatives recruited a candidate named Dan J. Sullivan to run in the Alaska Senate race. This plan aimed to pull votes from the incumbent Republican, Dan S. Sullivan. The investigation showed how political teams use ballot-stacking to influence important election results.
Our investigation found that Democratic operatives were behind a plan to bring a potential spoiler into the Senate race.
How did a potential Republican spoiler end up on the Alaska ballot for one of the most important Senate races in the country?
The New York Times reporter Kellen Browning nailed down the facts to answer that question this week. Through interviews, documents and text messages, Kellen confirmed that political operatives aligned with the Democratic Senate campaign of Mary Peltola recruited another candidate, Dan J. Sullivan, to run as a Republican in the Senate race and try to pull votes away from the incumbent Republican, Dan S. Sullivan.
Since our article was published on Wednesday, readers have asked why we devoted a long investigation to this instance of "ballot-stacking" -- a strategy considered legal that has been used by Democrats and Republicans alike. Some have wondered about the timing of our article, published less than a week before Election Day, and our interviews with a source who might have had a grievance with the Peltola campaign and who later tried to retract her statements.
We spoke about these questions with Kellen, who has been covering the midterm campaigns, and Amy Gardner, a deputy editor on the Politics desk. They also detailed some of the rules guiding The Times's dealings with sources, and why it's important to allow readers to be the judge. This conversation has been edited.
Kellen, you've been busy reporting on the Alaska Senate election, which is critical for control of the chamber. Catch us up on the race.
KELLEN BROWNING: I've been covering this race since Mary Peltola announced in January that she would challenge Senator Dan Sullivan, but my reporting really ramped up this summer when another Dan Sullivan -- Dan J. Sullivan -- turned this into a pretty fascinating story. I wrote about the legal fight over whether he could stay on the ballot, and in August, I flew to Alaska to interview him about his motivations for running and whether anyone had coaxed him into the race. (He said no one had.)
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