00:02If you think two Dan Sullivan's on the same ballot is strange, well, Alaska isn't the only place we've seen
00:08some unusual politics this election cycle. I caught up with our senior politics reporter, Ozzy Pabra, outside the Capitol over
00:15the weekend to talk about some of the wilder stories we've seen and what he's watching as we head into
00:20Election Day.
00:21Over the last few weeks, we've talked a bunch about some of the biggest storylines during this midterm cycle and
00:29what a long midterm cycle it has been.
00:32And some of the craziest storylines. We're currently seeing one play out right now in Alaska with Mary Peltola's campaign
00:40being accused of coordinating to have the teacher Dan Sullivan run against the incumbent Dan Sullivan.
00:48My question to you is, what has been one of the craziest storylines that we've seen this midterm cycle?
00:57I mean, in a midterm cycle where you have two Dan Sullivans running for Senate on the Republican line in
01:06Alaska, you have an Ohio Republican candidate running an ad featuring the estranged mom of his Democratic opponent,
01:15who that candidate hasn't spoken to her mom in five decades and for very good reason.
01:20And there's a very tragic case of abuse in the background. But you have all sorts of cases of people
01:26tweaking their websites to either hide the fact that they were supportive of Donald Trump or erase prior statements about
01:35climate change and health equity and women's health issues.
01:41To be fair, at least one of those people said, you know, that was I erased it because it was
01:46from an old campaign.
01:48Yes, you know, some people are updating 2024 campaigns for 2026 and others on the Republican side are erasing things
01:56they said only a few weeks or months ago about Donald Trump because he is so unpopular compared to other
02:01presidents at this period.
02:03The other thing that is quietly but very loudly becoming a more central issue is just whether or not people
02:12are going to accept the election results.
02:15President Donald Trump very famously, very publicly has challenged election results that he does not like.
02:21He has never accepted his loss in 2020. And increasingly, he has staffed his administration with people who are walking
02:28that same line.
02:30The question is, how many people who have his endorsement, who have said they're aligned with him, are on election
02:37night going to accept the results?
02:39Now, what's happening in Alaska is fodder for challenging those results.
02:44The Department of Justice already has a they had a lawsuit even before that.
02:47Your time story exposed the Democratic plot to have that second because this goes back to earlier in the year.
02:55This has been going on for months. And as unethical and immoral as it might be, there might not actually
03:02be a violation of law.
03:04They're also challenging voter registration in California on some very shoddy work that has been debunked numerous times.
03:12And it's all laying the groundwork for the president to come out on election night before any results are finalized
03:17or generally accepted and to declare what he wants.
03:20It's almost like you're you're saying that even though there have been these really unique storylines throughout the midterm cycle,
03:31we could be seeing one of the most consequential storylines play out after after election night.
03:40Absolutely. Election night is the start or actually the sort of middle of the election storyline.
03:48The campaigns have had months, in some cases, years of telling their story.
03:54Voters for the last couple of weeks have been casting their ballots, early votes in person, early votes by mail.
03:59And on election night, that's when you see the score.
04:03And some of those scores don't get tabulated for a couple of days because it takes a while to process
04:07some of these absentee ballots and votes that come in by mail.
04:12But what the president and some Republicans are doing is initiating the what appears to be a challenge in advance
04:21of results.
04:22Now, the other thing that is an emerging storyline that is unlike anything we've ever seen is the money.
04:31Hmm. Talk about it.
04:32Elon Musk is the single largest known contributor to candidates and campaign committees this cycle.
04:44If you really want to be infuriated, think about your number one issue.
04:50The number one issue that you as a voter think is the most important.
04:54To a lot of voters, the economy, cost of living, affordability.
04:57Is it cost of living at the pump? Is it the road in front of your house having potholes that
05:03are not filled?
05:03Is it your child's school not having updated textbooks or a crumbling roof?
05:08Pick any one of those issues.
05:12Try to calculate how much it would cost to fix it.
05:15And compare that to the amount of money that goes in to arguing who is the right person to fix
05:23it.
05:25If people like Elon Musk and other billionaires took a portion of their money and dedicated it to solving the
05:35issues rather than electing the people that they prefer to solve those issues,
05:38you potentially could see more dramatic movement.
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