Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday that the Democrats' alleged ballot-stacking operation in Alaska's Senate race was "pretty dumb" — but insisted it was "not illegal" and rejected any federal role in policing it.
Appearing on CBS News' "Face the Nation" with Margaret Brennan, Sanders was asked about a New York Times report that Democrats in Alaska recruited a retired schoolteacher named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. — dubbed "Decoy Dan" — so his name could appear on the ballot and siphon votes from Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). The Democratic nominee, Mary Peltola, and her campaign have been connected to the effort in the reporting.
"Yeah, frankly what the Democrats did in Alaska seems to be pretty dumb but ... it's not illegal," Sanders told Brennan, according to the Washington Examiner.
It is not known whether Peltola or her campaign has responded to the allegation. The reported recruitment scheme remains an allegation based on the New York Times reporting, not a finding by any court.
Sanders did not stop at Alaska. He compared the alleged scheme to Republican-aligned super PAC spending in Ohio, where he said a right-wing group is funding socialist Senate candidate Greg Levy to pull votes from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
"So why in Ohio is a Republican right-wing super PAC funding a socialist? The answer is obviously obvious. They want to take votes away from Sherrod Brown," Sanders said. "Is this a good thing to do? No, it is not a good thing to do. It's a stupid thing to do."
The Vermont senator also rejected the idea of federal intervention in the Alaska dispute, arguing election administration belongs to state officials. And he turned his fire on President Donald Trump, calling it "a little bit absurd" for a president who disputed his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden to determine what constitutes a fair election.
The legal fight is already underway. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state over the matter, but U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ruled Sunday that the department lacked standing, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Alaska race between Peltola and Sullivan took its turn last week when the New York Times published its report on the alleged recruitment of the second Sullivan — a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg, Alaska. The report alleged that operatives connected to Peltola's campaign helped recruit him.
Sanders' comments amount to a rare public concession from a prominent figure on the left that the Alaska maneuver looks bad. But his framing — dumb, not illegal — is likely to infuriate Republicans who argue the scheme is precisely the kind of voter-confusion tactic that election laws exist to prevent.
"Attempts from either political party to confuse voters are 'not a good thing to do,'" Sanders said, per the Washington Examiner.
The judge's standing ruling leaves the DOJ's challenge sidelined for now, and Sanders' position that states should handle election administration is one Republicans usually champion. In this case, though, it means the Alaska dispute stays where it started: in the hands of state officials, with the alleged scheme unresolved.
What the ruling and Sanders' remarks change for Alaska voters is concrete: the ballot in the Peltola-Sullivan race is not being altered by a federal court, and the candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. remains on it. Whether that pulls votes from Sen. Dan Sullivan is a matter for the count.
Our Take
Leave it to Bernie Sanders to hand Republicans the soundbite of the week. The senator from Vermont — a self-described democratic socialist who has spent decades demanding federal action on everything from health care to climate — suddenly discovered the Tenth Amendment when asked about his own party's Alaska games. States' rights, Bernie? Welcome aboard.
But the real story is his adjective. "Dumb." Not "false." Not "baseless. That is a concession dressed up as criticism — an admission that the alleged recruitment of a decoy candidate named Sullivan to confuse voters in a Senate race is exactly what the New York Times said it was.
And notice the deflection: Ohio, the super PAC, Sherrod Brown. Two wrongs do not make a ballot-stacking scheme legal, and they certainly do not make it fair to the people of Alaska.
Judge Gleason's standing ruling is a procedural setback, not an exoneration. The DOJ can appeal, and the underlying allegation — operatives connected to a Senate campaign recruiting a same-name decoy to split an incumbent's vote — deserves a full airing. If Sanders thinks it's legal, let him say so under oath, not in a Sunday-show segment.
Patriots, this is what the Left's "fortify the election" playbook looks like when the cameras are on. They will call it dumb, they will call it legal, and they will call it a states' rights issue — right up until the votes are counted. The question now is whether Alaska officials will actually investigate, or whether the cover-up gets the same shrug Sanders gave it on national television.
