The "Decoy Dan" scandal in Alaska is roiling the Senate race there and may just sink Democrat Alaska Senate nominee Mary Peltola's campaign. 

The New York Times reported on the alleged effort by the Peltola campaign and Democrat operatives to find and recruit a person named Dan Sullivan to run as a spoiler candidate against the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), to confuse the voters. The NYTimes report had sources and texts to back up the report.

Mary Peltola first tried to skate around it, calling the report a "distraction." But the backlash kept coming because the story was huge and she couldn't just make it go away. Then Peltola denied it, despite the evidence in the report. 

"I just want to clear the air. I knew nothing about any other candidates on the ballot except for me and the incumbent. That is all I have ever known about. I am not interested in tricking voters. I know I can beat Dan Sullivan," she told supporters.

She even tried to attack The New York Times for committing journalism.  "And when did The New York Times become the National Enquirer? Inquiring minds want to know," she said.

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Then Democrat Rep. Suzan DelBene (WA-01), who is also the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair, made the mistake of going on CNBC with Andrew Sorkin and Joe Kernen. Sorkin asked about the Peltola scandal. Thus began a truly hilarious, four-minute struggle session as DelBene tried every which way to avoid giving her opinion as a human being on The New York Times report, and respond with two talking points: the Peltola campaign has denied it, and Republicans are the bad guys for trying to clean up the voter rolls. 

"Republicans from the very beginning have been set up trying to rig the system," she insisted. 

But Sorkin just kept pressing, saying he wanted her opinion on the Peltola scandal. "So you don't believe the report at all...I'm asking you as a human, as a citizen, you're watching this play out, and you say to yourself, "This is crazy." 

She kept twisting in the wind. "The Peltola campaign has denied that happened," she said. 

"But the report is the opposite of what they're saying," Sorkin said incredulously. 

Sorkin and Kernen then talked about the "12 sources" and the people on the record saying it happened. 

"You have someone in your party who appears to have done something terrible," Sorkin said. 

DelBene kept trying to talk about Republicans gerrymandering and questions about vote-by-mail, which had nothing to do with the matter. Kernen rejected that, saying both sides did redistricting. 

Joe Kernen had a savage end line for DelBene: “Chairwoman, it's good you got that, you know, not a lot of DelBenes around, so you probably have, Democrats won't be able to find anyone to run against.”

But that's crazy. She couldn't even say, "Well, if it is true, it was terrible, and they shouldn't have done it." How do Democrats think they have any credibility at all when they respond this way? That's what Sorkin was trying to tell her, but she still refused to get off the talking points. 

It just makes the Democrats look even worse. I think Fox's Aishah Hasnie spoke for all of us with how bad this was.