The Dan J Sullivan the DOJ is saying is on the ballot to confuse voters in Alaska was recruited by a former campaign manager for the Peltola campaign. Peltola denies any knowledge of it but that person was fired earlier this year and the Times reporting suggests Peltola was aware of the plan and also that they recruited another conservative candidate since Alaska allows 4 people on the ballot.
The irony, it's not in the Times story but it's all over social media now the staffer got the idea from Florida where Republicans intentionally ran candidates with similar names in 2020 and 2024 to confuse voters. They decided since Alaska allowed 4 candidates it was perfectly legal to recruit candidates. NYT says a Dem operative conducted interviews and they convinced Dan J Sullivan a Republican former school teacher to run for office. They involved lawyers to make sure everything they did was 100% legal, but the implication is that the intent was clearly to confuse voters