🧩 BND Motif Index · M813
Spoiler candidate
A candidate is said to be planted to split the other side's vote or confuse its voters, entered not to win but to make someone else lose.
📜 Plots🗂️ Elections🗂️ Political manipulation
- 8claims filed under it
- 1left show it came up on
- 7right shows it came up on
- 2claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Ratf*cking 🧩 Splitting the vote
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
⚖️ center 0
🦗 none of our center shows, so far
🐘 right 7
🎙️ Advisory Opinions 🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 🎙️ Louder with Crowder 🎙️ Morning Wire 🎙️ Ruthless 🎙️ The Mark Levin Show 🎙️ Verdict with Ted Cruz
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-27 “Democrats orchestrated a campaign for a fake Dan Sullivan to confuse voters.”
🎙️ Verdict with Ted Cruz - 2026-10-27 “Daniel J. Sullivan is attempting to confuse voters by using the same name and party affiliation as Senator Dan Sullivan.”
🎙️ To the Contrary with Charlie Sykes 🎙️ Advisory Opinions - 2026-10-25 “Republicans are masterminding a scheme to use a candidate with the same surname as an incumbent to create election chaos.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-24 “Republicans use ghost candidates with the same last name as Democrats to steal elections.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-23 “Democrats use independent candidates to push conservative voters toward the left or toward protest votes.”
🎙️ Ruthless 🎙️ Louder with Crowder 🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton - 2026-10-17 “Democrats are deploying a decoy candidate to undermine the real Dan Sullivan in Alaska.”
🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 🎙️ The Mark Levin Show 🎙️ Morning Wire - 2026-10-13 “Democrats are attempting to manipulate Alaskans into throwing away their votes by recruiting a deceptive candidate.”
🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 🎙️ The Mark Levin Show 🎙️ Morning Wire - 2026-10-08 “Democrats recruited a decoy candidate to confuse voters and rig the election for Peltola.”
🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton
M813 · first seen 2026-10-10 · last 2026-10-27 · what this is · how the index works