Two Dan Sullivans and other bizarre twists in the 2026 midterm elections

If you think two Dan Sullivans on the same ballot is strange, well, Alaska isn't the only place we've seen some unusual politics this election cycle. I caught up with our senior politics reporter Ozzie Pavera outside the Capitol over the weekend to talk about some of the wilder stories we've seen and what he's watching as we head into election day. Over the last few weeks, we've talked a bunch about some of the biggest storylines during this midterm cycle and what a long midterm cycle it has been. And some of the craziest storylines. We're currently seeing one play out right now in Alaska with Mary Peltola's campaign being accused of coordinating to have the teacher Dan Sullivan run against the incumbent Dan Sullivan. My question to you is what has been One of the crazier storylines that we've seen this midterm cycle. I mean, in a midterm cycle where you have two Dan Sullivans running for Senate on the Republican line in Alaska, you have an Ohio Republican candidate running an ad featuring the estranged mom of his Democratic opponent. Who that candidate hasn't spoken to her mom in five decades and for very good reason. There's a very tragic case of abuse in the background. But you have all sorts of cases of people tweaking their websites to either hide the fact that they were supportive of Donald Trump or erase prior statements about climate change and health equity and women's... Uh, health issues. To be fair, at least one of those people said, you know, that was, I erased it because it was from an old campaign. Yes. You know, some people are updating 2024 campaigns for 2026 and others on the Republican side are erasing things they said only a few weeks or months ago about Donald Trump because he is so unpopular compared to other presidents at this period. The other thing that is quietly but very loudly becoming a more central issue. It's just whether or not people are going to accept the election results. President Donald Trump, very famously, very publicly, has challenged election results that he does not like. He has never accepted his loss in 2020, and increasingly he has staffed his administration with people who are walking that same line. The question is how many people who have his endorsement, who have said they're aligned with him, are, on election night, going to accept the results. Now, what's happening in Alaska is fodder for challenging those results. The Department of Justice already has a law. They had a lawsuit even before that. Your Time Story exposed the Democratic plot to have that second. Because this goes back to earlier in the year. This has been going on for months. And as unethical and immoral as it might be, there might not actually be a violation of law. They're also challenging voter registration in California on some very shoddy work that has been debunked numerous times. And it's all laying the groundwork for the president to come out on election night before any results are finalized or generally accepted and to declare what he wants. It's almost like you're you're saying that even though there have been these really unique storylines throughout the midterm cycle. We could be seeing one of the most consequential storylines play out after election night. Absolutely. Election night is the start or actually the sort of middle of the election storyline. The campaigns have had months, in some cases years, of telling their story. Voters for the last couple of weeks have been casting their ballots, early votes in person, early votes by mail. And on election night, that's when you see the score. And some of those scores don't get tabulated for a couple of days because it takes a while to process some of these absentee ballots and votes that come in by mail. But what the president and some Republicans are doing is initiating the what appears to be a challenge in advance of results. Now, the other thing that is an emerging storyline that is unlike anything we've ever seen is the money. Hmm. Talk about it. Elon Musk is the single largest known contributor to candidates and campaign committees this cycle. If you really want to be infuriated, think about your number one issue, the number one issue that you as a voter think is the most important. To a lot of voters, the economy, cost of living, affordability. Is it cost of living at the pump? Is it The road in front of your house having potholes that are not filled? Is it your child's school not having updated textbooks or crumbling roof? Pick any one of those issues. Try to calculate how much it would cost to fix it and compare that to the amount of money that goes in to arguing who is the right person to fix it. If people like Elon Musk and other billionaires took a portion of their money and dedicated it to solving the issues rather than electing the people that they prefer to solve those issues, You potentially could see more dramatic movement.