Public "Party Traitor," Low-Level Spoiler Tactics! The Final Stretch of the U.S. Midterms Is "Full of Drama"

Original author: Long Yue

Original source: Wall Street See

The U.S. midterm elections were held on November 3, with Republicans and Democrats locked in fierce contests for both chambers of Congress as well as state and local seats. Yet in the final stretch before the vote, multiple states across the country were hit by a series of "spectacles."

On the Democratic side, one was an open "intra-party defection," the other a carefully orchestrated ballot-splitting scheme. In Michigan, Democratic Representative Haley Stevens publicly turned her back on the final Sunday before the election, endorsing Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers. In Alaska, a deep-dive investigation by local media revealed that the campaign team of Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola spent months secretly recruiting a "decoy candidate" who shares the name of the incumbent Republican senator, in an attempt to siphon votes from her opponent by confusing voters over names.

On the Republican side, dramatic scenarios emerged, including a "mother-daughter falling-out" and "dueling attack ads." According to Xinhua News Agency, in the Ohio gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sparked enormous controversy by using the biological mother of his Democratic opponent Amy Acton in an attack campaign ad.

The internal discipline and electoral strategies of both Republicans and Democrats in the final sprint are facing severe tests. Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's elections, these fissures will not disappear with them.

Michigan: Open Defection, Party in Uproar

According to media reports on November 1, Haley Stevens announced her support for Republican candidate Rogers in a video posted to X on Sunday, saying: "I am not part of Abdul's campaign." She also said she does not share the positions of left-wing network streamer Hasan Piker and others in El-Sayed's campaign team, adding: "I love this state... I am here to declare our identity as Michigan people."

Stevens had previously lost to Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed by less than one percentage point in the August primary, after which she reluctantly endorsed him. But relations between the two remained frosty.

Tensions escalated in recent days. Stevens demanded that El-Sayed publicly apologize for his criticism of Israel and distance himself from an outside ad she considered antisemitic in tone. El-Sayed said he did not endorse the ad's content and accused Stevens of diverting attention from the core issues of the campaign.

On Sunday, Stevens appeared at a Detroit church alongside Rogers. She told reporters: "I stood with the party, and I was booed off the stage."

El-Sayed later responded to reporters outside another church with a single sentence: "None of that matters."

Stevens' "defection" drew strong condemnation within the Democratic Party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement calling it "a despicable betrayal by Representative Haley Stevens." Outgoing Michigan Senator Gary Peters said he was "deeply disappointed" by Stevens' decision.

Stevens' own congressional office was thrown into chaos as a result. Her chief of staff, Justin German, issued a statement saying he and multiple staff members were "shocked and heartbroken" by the endorsement decision and announced his resignation. "This election is too important to create division or stand on the sidelines," German wrote, urging voters to support El-Sayed. A media reporter sent a request for comment to Stevens' communications director Logan Basch and received an auto-reply: "Hello, as of November 1, I am no longer employed in the office of Representative Haley Stevens."

Alaska: Same-Name Spoiler, Two "Dan Sullivans"

The Alaska story is more complex. According to a media deep-dive investigation, as early as the summer of 2025, staff on Mary Peltola's campaign team received an unusual instruction: find every person in Alaska named Dan Sullivan.

The reason was obvious. Dan S. Sullivan is the name of the state's incumbent Republican senator. If another person with the same name could be persuaded to run, it could create confusion under the state's unusual four-candidate ballot system and siphon votes from the incumbent senator.

The plan worked. This spring, a retired teacher from a remote fishing village in the Alaska Panhandle, reachable only by air and sea, announced his candidacy for Senate. His name is Dan J. Sullivan.

The report was based on interviews with 12 people familiar with the matter, dozens of text message records, and documents prepared for potential litigation. The report's core source was Peltola's former campaign manager Elisa Rios—who was fired in an August team restructuring and subsequently gave a series of interviews to the newspaper.

"Alaska voters need to know the truth," Rios said. "There has been a lot of speculation, and voters deserve complete information when making their decisions."

She said Peltola herself was not directly involved in the project but "certainly knew about it."

According to the report, the same-name operation was internally called the "Ballot Composition Project," and its central figure was Jerid Kurtz, a veteran Democratic operative from Ohio. He was introduced to the Peltola team by staff of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) as a "secret ballot operations expert." Kurtz used an alias and cover story during the operation, moving around Alaska under the identity of "Zane" and pitching potential candidates in bars.

Rios described the moment Kurtz reported finding Dan J. Sullivan. Kurtz said the Sullivan "said he hates Trump, and if this can help Mary, he likes Mary. He has no interest in being a politician, but if this can help..."

Peltola Campaign Denies Recruiting "Decoy Candidate"

Both the Peltola campaign and the DSCC denied involvement in recruiting a decoy candidate. "Alaskans for Mary Peltola has no connection to any Sullivan campaign and has not recruited any candidate to run," the team said in a statement. The DSCC issued a similar statement, saying it had "no knowledge" of recruiting Sullivan or "any other Republican candidate."

The Justice Department has filed suit in federal court at Trump's request, seeking to block certification of the election results if Dan J. Sullivan's presence on the ballot causes the incumbent senator to lose.

But legal experts are skeptical. Former Republican National Committee general counsel Benjamin Ginsberg told Bloomberg: "This is purely political theater disguised as legal action." Rick Hasen, an election law scholar at UCLA, likewise argued that the Justice Department's theory of suing individuals for "depriving voters of constitutional rights" is "likely to run into First Amendment obstacles."

On the political front, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Ronald Brownstein noted that the scandal's greatest damage lies in its direct contradiction of Peltola's core campaign narrative—she has consistently portrayed herself as an "outsider" focused on ordinary Alaskans, depicting incumbent Senator Sullivan (an Ohio transplant) as "the embodiment of Washington's corrupt system." "Now it looks like her side was the one trying to manipulate the rules," Brownstein wrote.

However, Ivan Moore, Alaska's leading independent pollster, told Bloomberg that the controversy's "most likely outcome is virtually no impact at all."

Ohio: Mother-Daughter Falling-Out

Beyond Michigan and Alaska, campaigns in multiple locations in the final stretch continued to revolve around personal histories, ad creativity, and résumé controversies.

According to Xinhua News Agency, in the Ohio gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sparked enormous controversy by using the biological mother of his Democratic opponent Amy Acton in an attack campaign ad.

Ramaswamy's campaign team invited Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, to appear in an ad and spent heavily to promote it. In the ad, Donna Arthur calls her daughter a "liar" with "serious problems," denies her daughter's experiences of childhood abuse and homelessness, and urges voters not to elect her daughter as governor.

The ad drew criticism after being released on social media, with Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine also criticizing it; Trump and Vice President Vance publicly supported airing the ad.

Texas: Dueling Attack Ads

In the Texas Senate race, the ad war between Republican candidate and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic candidate James Talarico continues to heat up. Xinhua News Agency reported that the two campaign teams have spent a combined total exceeding $500 million, potentially making it one of the most expensive Senate races in U.S. history.

In one ad from Paxton's team, a hand removes a missing child poster from a utility pole, intended to highlight his record on combating human trafficking. But the ad was mocked by Democrats and netizens for the image of "tearing down a missing person poster."

Talarico's team, meanwhile, released an ad for a fictional sports betting app, inviting viewers to predict Paxton's "next scandal." The ad says: "This app is fake, but Ken Paxton's scandals are real."

For market and policy observers, the focus extends beyond the outcome of any single seat. If Alaska's vote counting, ranked-choice voting, and litigation proceedings drag on simultaneously, final confirmation of Senate control could be delayed, and post-election political uncertainty will persist accordingly.