Halloween is a good time to remember that appearances can be deceiving. Especially when it comes to this year’s Senate Democrats.
The radical Democrats running in Texas, Michigan, and Alaska have attempted some creative — and deceptive — tactics to get their radical agendas into the Senate. But whether they’re softening their positions or facing allegations of ballot manipulation, voters should see through the election-year act.
In Texas, Talarico has presented himself as a moderate guided by his faith. El-Sayed has pushed Michigan voters to focus on his ambitious campaign promises, not his political associations. And in Alaska, Mary Peltola’s campaign has allegedly gone as far as to add a fake candidate to trick voters.
For Talarico, his moderate costume is already running into issues with his legislative record. The Texas Tribune documented his shifting presentation on transgender athletes and energy policy, even as his campaign insisted he’s remained consistent. Voters are not buying it.
But Talarico’s numerous past statements make it hard to dress up into something he is not. Talarico's statements include “God is non-binary,” "Prophetic voices like Jesus have helped me reckon with my own whiteness,” “the American flag is such a complicated symbol for most of us,” and he has described himself as a “Christian who hates Christianity.”
During his campaign, Talarico has tried to walk back many of these statements in an effort to appear more moderate and buy himself more Texan votes.
But if he makes it to the Senate, everything he campaigned on will shift. A church leader at Talarico’s own church said as much in an undercover recording.
“I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was,” Rev. Babs Miller said.
Miller also said Talarico’s campaign has “convinced” him that “the Democratic party is backing off on their stances on trans and all of this, and so his staff is encouraging him to do the same thing just for the next 50 [days].”
The anti-meat, anti-Second Amendment candidate’s moderate disguise is an obvious one, but what’s hiding underneath is dangerous. The only thing Talarico likes more than disguising his views is weighing in on his favorite drag stars.
El-Sayed, meanwhile, is trying to hide his family’s well-documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and run cover for his choice to campaign with radical streamer Hasan Piker. It’s not working.
In an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier last week, El-Sayed would hardly let Baier get the question out of his mouth before shutting it down.
“[Mike] Rogers has really been hitting this Muslim Brotherhood thing. I know you don’t want to talk about your family and the history there,” Baier began, attempting to ask El-Sayed about a 2012 letter he signed supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Bret, Bret, Bret, let me just, let me just—Bret, Bret, Bret, let me just—no, no, no, no. Let me just stop there,” El-Sayed interjected.
El-Sayed’s mother and father both have documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a fact El-Sayed has desperately tried to hide and replace with a more palatable characterization of himself as a family man or a high school jock.
But El-Sayed’s own sister, who has previously posted about her family’s connections to the terrorist organization, confirmed he is attempting to hide behind a moderate disguise.
“All we care about is the policies at this point,” Eman Abdelhadi said to an undercover reporter.
“Exactly, getting him in,” said the reporter.
“Exactly,” Abdelhadi confirmed.
And El-Sayed isn’t the only one playing games. Recent reporting found Alaskan Mary Peltola’s campaign is responsible for putting a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot in an effort to trick voters and harm the incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan.
The Peltola campaign’s effort began in 2025 with the aim to “find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can,” according to The New York Times.
The result is current Republican candidate Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from a tiny remote town on the Alaskan Panhandle.
A former Peltola staffer said she was not “directly involved in the project,” but was “definitely aware” of the effort to trick voters. Peltola has denied knowing about the recruitment effort, but visited the fraud Dan Sullivan’s town just days before he announced his candidacy.
How problematic is this trick on voters? Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced he was launching a Department of Public Safety investigation into the campaign’s alleged actions.
“Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support,” Dunleavy said. “Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.”
These Democrats want voters to believe they’ll get what they see if elected. But their records say otherwise. And six years in the Senate would leave voters with plenty of time to regret buying the narrative these candidates are selling.
That should be enough to scare anyone to the polls.