Chuck Schumer's nonprofit arm cast a man who hand-delivered a copycat Senate candidate's filing paperwork in an Alaska attack ad, even as Schumer's team insisted it had zero connection to the controversial campaign.
Majority Forward, the nonprofit affiliate of Schumer's Senate Majority PAC, began airing an ad on June 16 featuring a man identified only as "Alan" from Anchorage, the owner of a local moving company who accuses Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan of "voting to raise our costs." But a Washington Free Beacon investigation found that "Alan" is Alan Harris, the same man who walked Dan J. Sullivan's declaration of candidacy into the Alaska Division of Elections on June 1, fifteen days before the ad started running.
Dan J. Sullivan is the candidate Republicans have labeled "Decoy Dan," a political newcomer who filed to run for U.S. Senate as a Republican and asked to appear on the ballot as "Dan S. Sullivan", the sitting senator's name, despite not sharing his middle initial. He registered with the Republican Party just two days before filing. The Alaska Division of Elections disqualified him in June, concluding his campaign served "the purpose of confusing or misleading voters."
A lower court reversed that disqualification, and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the reversal on June 29. Dan J. Sullivan will now appear on the August 18 primary ballot alongside the incumbent senator. The Washington Examiner reported the court directed the Division of Elections to determine how to distinguish the two candidates on the ballot "within the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law."
Schumer's team denied involvement nine days before the ad aired. On June 7, representatives for Schumer and Senate Majority PAC told reporters they had nothing to do with Dan J. Sullivan's campaign. Then, on June 16, Majority Forward put Harris on television.
The Free Beacon's reporting traces a direct personal link between Harris and the Dan J. Sullivan campaign's chief political operative. Harris is the romantic partner of Amber Lee, a Democratic strategist who was hired as Dan J. Sullivan's campaign adviser. Dan J. Sullivan confirmed Lee's role in June after metadata from his campaign launch press release listed "Amber Lee" as its author.
Business registration records show Harris's company, Allstar Moving, and Lee's firm, Amber Lee Strategies, are both registered to the same residential address in Anchorage. Lee owns the property. In January 2025, the couple celebrated their three-year anniversary on social media. A month later, Lee referred to Harris as her "boyfriend" in a published essay for Literary Traveler.
Lee is no stranger to Alaska Democratic politics. The New York Times described her in 2022 as "a Democratic strategist who is backing Ms. Peltola", referring to Mary Peltola, the former congresswoman and Sen. Sullivan's top Democratic opponent. The Hill called Lee "an Alaska Democratic consultant" in a January piece. Federal campaign finance disclosures show that Vote Alaska Before Party, a super PAC that supported Peltola's congressional campaigns, paid Amber Lee Strategies more than $6,000 between November 2022 and October 2024.
So the woman advising the copycat Republican candidate is a Democratic operative with documented financial ties to the incumbent senator's Democratic rival. And her boyfriend delivered the copycat's paperwork, then appeared in a Schumer-linked ad attacking the same senator.
A Senate Majority PAC spokesman pushed back on the Free Beacon's findings, insisting the overlap was accidental:
"This is much ado about nothing. Neither Senate Majority PAC nor Majority Forward has ever communicated with Dan J. Sullivan, directly or indirectly, nor did Senate Majority PAC encourage him to run or have any involvement in his campaign."
The spokesman added that "both entities were equally unaware that an individual featured in a Majority Forward ad was involved with the Dan J. Sullivan campaign." He said the video was filmed in early May, "weeks before Dan J. Sullivan filed to run," and that the ads "are no longer running and have not been for some time."
That timeline raises its own questions. If the ad was filmed in early May and Harris did not deliver Dan J. Sullivan's candidacy papers until June 1, Majority Forward could plausibly argue it did not know about Harris's campaign role at the time of filming. But the ad did not begin airing until June 16, more than two weeks after Harris walked the filing into the Division of Elections, and nine days after Schumer's team publicly denied any connection to the Dan J. Sullivan effort.
Schumer, now the Senate minority leader, has faced increasing scrutiny over his political maneuvering. His standing within his own party has drawn fire from progressives even as Republicans accuse him of orchestrating underhanded tactics in competitive Senate races.
Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, claimed he chose to run as a Republican because his "father and grandfather were both Republicans" who raised him "to believe in compassionate conservatism." But voting records obtained by The Alaska Story tell a different story: his father pulled Democratic primary ballots in Illinois in both 2006 and 2024.
Sen. Dan S. Sullivan has not been quiet about the situation. He told Fox News that "the Democrats in D.C., the Peltola campaign, are complicit in trying to trick Alaskans," calling it "an insult to rig, I say very strongly, rig an election in their favor."
NRSC spokesperson Nick Puglia was more direct: "Mary Peltola and Chuck Schumer know they can't beat Senator Sullivan on his record, so they're resorting to deceitful political maneuvers that attempt to trick Alaskans and buy a seat."
Alaska's primary system amplifies the stakes. The state uses a "top four" ranked-choice format in which all candidates, regardless of party, run in a single primary. The top four vote-getters advance to the general election. A name-confusion candidate on that ballot could siphon enough votes from the incumbent to alter who makes the cut, exactly the outcome Republicans fear.
National Review reported that the Department of Justice is investigating the Dan J. Sullivan campaign, and a criminal indictment before the August 18 primary could be the only remaining mechanism to keep his name off the ballot. With the Alaska Supreme Court ruling that a candidate's motivations for running are irrelevant to ballot eligibility, the legal avenues for Republicans have narrowed considerably.
Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project called it "Decoy Dan's deception campaign" but noted the court left room for election officials to "clearly mark this imposter candidate in a way that distinguishes him from the sitting senator." How effective any ballot labeling will be against a candidate who specifically requested to appear as "Dan S. Sullivan" remains an open question.
Schumer has faced a string of political setbacks in the Senate, including recent losses that have tested his grip on the Democratic caucus. Whether this Alaska episode amounts to a coordinated scheme or a remarkable chain of coincidences, the documented connections between Schumer's ad operation, a Democratic strategist, and a copycat candidate's campaign are now public record.
Amber Lee, Alan Harris, and Dan J. Sullivan have not publicly addressed the Free Beacon's findings linking all three to the Majority Forward ad. Nor has Majority Forward explained how it selected Harris, a man whose girlfriend runs the copycat campaign, out of all the moving company owners in Anchorage.
Schumer's allies can call this coincidence. But coincidence does not usually come with matching home addresses, shared campaign filings, and a Senate minority leader whose nonprofit just happened to put the right man on camera at the right time.
When the denial and the ad contradict each other, voters are entitled to believe their own eyes.
