Donald Trump raised the alarm about a possible kidnapping on the morning of Election Day in America. The missing man is Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who's running for the Senate in Alaska and has almost the same name as Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan. For the president, that similarity alone is apparently enough to turn a ballot into a conspiracy. In a late-night post, Trump claimed that the supposedly fake candidate had disappeared. Nobody could find him. Maybe he'd been kidnapped by corrupt Democratic lawyers who were terrified of being prosecuted for election fraud.
The story has a considerably more mundane explanation. Sullivan, a retired elementary school teacher from Petersburg, was spotted boarding a flight to Anchorage last Monday, according to local residents. Someone who knew him also said Sullivan and his wife were known for traveling extensively. His whereabouts after that remained unclear. None of that proves he was kidnapped. Trump prefers a world where even a plane trip can become the subject of criminal fantasies. Behind the dispute is a serious election contest. Mary Peltola is challenging the Republican senator. The independent candidate Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is also on the ballot. According to investigative reporting, people with ties to Peltola's campaign helped support his candidacy. Peltola denies knowing anything about it, and Democrats also deny any involvement. Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the candidacy are underway in Alaska. That certainly doesn't establish anyone's criminal guilt.
Trump had already claimed that Democrats were trying to steal the Senate seat by putting a fake Sullivan on the ballot. Voters supposedly wouldn't be able to tell the 2 names apart. The president therefore specifically urged people to vote for Dan S. Sullivan, along with Bernadette Wilson for governor and Nick Begich for the House. His explanation was characteristically modest: Nobody had done more for Alaska than Trump himself. One voter in Anchorage, however, looked at the ballot and dryly pointed out that the difference was obvious. Even without his glasses.
While Trump searches for someone supposedly kidnapped in Alaska, a Democratic congresswoman in Michigan is tearing apart her own political past. Haley Stevens lost the Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, promised to support him afterward, and then, 2 days before the election, publicly threw her support behind his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. They attended a church service together in Detroit on Sunday. The public endorsement caught even members of her own staff by surprise.
The split had been building for some time. Haley Stevens criticized El-Sayed's comments about Israel and demanded that he distance himself from a campaign ad linking American support for Israel to grocery prices. She was also bothered by political commentator Hasan Piker appearing alongside El-Sayed. Debbie Dingell eventually disinvited Stevens from a planned joint church event with El-Sayed and James Clyburn. Rogers showed up as a political replacement with astonishingly little notice.
Read also our article: 48 Hours Before the Election: Democrat Betrays Her Own Senate Candidate and Hugs Trump's Guy in Church
In her statement, Stevens claimed that El-Sayed had shut her out of his campaign and that she could no longer support him because of it. Just a short time earlier, she had assured leading Democrats that she would stand by him. Her 890-word statement on Monday framed the decision as a matter of conscience. In it, she declared that El-Sayed was unfit to serve as senator. Reports described the statement as having been written with the help of artificial intelligence. There is no independent confirmation of that.
On Tuesday, Stevens showed up at a polling place in Birmingham, Michigan, with her mother. She wore a conspicuous straw hat that partially covered her face. When a reporter asked whether endorsing Rogers had been worth it, she preferred to talk about her family's tradition of voting together. She called Election Day "Majority Makers Day," mentioned a conversation with Hakeem Jeffries, and referred to her written statement. When pressed again, she replied that voting was always worth it. That wasn't what she'd been asked.
On Tuesday, Stevens showed up at a polling place in Birmingham, Michigan, with her mother. She wore a conspicuous straw hat that partially covered her face. When a reporter asked whether endorsing Rogers had been worth it, she preferred to talk about her family's tradition of voting together. She called Election Day "Majority Makers Day," mentioned a conversation with Hakeem Jeffries, and referred to her written statement. When pressed again, she replied that voting was always worth it. That wasn't what she'd been asked.
In Alaska, a name is supposedly threatening democracy. In Michigan, a personal score-settling exercise has supposedly become a matter of conscience. Both are happening immediately before an election that will decide control of Congress. Trump demands that voters pay attention to a single letter in the name Sullivan. Stevens, meanwhile, would rather nobody look too closely at her own signature on an endorsement of a Republican.
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