Daniel J. Sullivan, the US Senate candidate accused of serving as a liberal “decoy” recruited by allies of Democratic contender Mary Peltola, has reportedly left his hometown.

Sullivan, whose name and appearance closely resemble those of Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, reportedly disappeared from Petersburg, the small fishing community where he lives, earlier this week.

A source told CBS she saw the candidate—dubbed “Dan Sullivan 2.0”—boarding a flight to Anchorage on Monday, just days before reports alleged that Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had recruited him to improve the Democrat’s prospects.

His whereabouts and ultimate destination remain unknown.

Several Petersburg residents also said they had not received typical campaign materials, including flyers or yard signs, from the former schoolteacher, whose candidacy has drawn national attention.

The reports emerged as US Attorney for the District of Alaska Michael Heyman and Matthew Schlegel, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Anchorage Field Office, told reporters that an investigation into the alleged ballot scheme had been underway for months. They said findings published by The New York Times had accelerated the inquiry.

The developments come as Peltola’s contest against Republican Senator Dan Sullivan is shaping up to be one of the nation’s tightest races—and one that may not yield a definitive result on election night.

“Recent reporting has resulted in troubling new revelations,” Heyman said, adding that he had assigned “several attorneys” from his office to the investigation.

Heyman confirmed that a civil lawsuit and a criminal investigation are both underway in connection with the alleged ballot manipulation effort, though he did not identify the specific criminal offense under review.

“We will not let anyone or any group undermine this election,” Heyman said. “When credible information comes out, we are committed to pursuing that information, and we will act on it. We are acting on it intensely and swiftly.”

Heyman also said the United States was seeking a preliminary injunction after receiving what he described as “new information” within the previous 24 hours.

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Meanwhile, President Trump’s Justice Department sent letters to election officials nationwide ordering them to preserve election records or face possible criminal penalties.

The department acknowledged the move in a court filing on Friday, according to documents obtained by Democracy Docket.

The Trump administration has launched an eleventh-hour effort to challenge the handling of Alaska’s Senate race—even before voters have cast their ballots.

The letters, issued by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, direct election officials to retain ballots and related records for at least 22 months under a decades-old federal law.

Officials who fail to comply could face penalties of up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

The race was shaken up this week after a bombshell report found Peltola’s campaign allegedly ‘planted’ a candidate with a name double of her Republican opponent Dan Sullivan in a scheme to boost her winning chances. 

Her campaign, and the DSCC, are now under a criminal investigation opened this week by the state’s Republican governor for allegedly recruiting the ‘Decoy’ Dan Sullivan.

At the same time, an ongoing civil case, filed by the Department of Justice earlier this year, is examining whether Alaska can certify the results if incumbent Dan Sullivan loses.

The Cook Political Report ranks Alaska’s Senate race as a toss-up, and the crucial seat could determine the balance of power in Congress.

President Donald Trump has previously called for Peltola to be prosecuted herself after the report came to light, decrying ‘fraud’ in the state and demanding that she and the ‘Decoy’ Dan be removed from the ballot.

But legal experts told the Daily Mail that the civil case – and Trump’s calls for a federal prosecution – are unlikely to advance. 

This is a developing story… 

Read his lips: Bruce Blakeman is promising no new taxes.

The Republican candidate for governor signed a “no new taxes” pledge Friday, challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul to do the same just days before the candidates meet in the Nov. 3 election.

Blakeman’s pledge came after Hochul delivered an unclear response this week when asked whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support on the campaign trail included an implicit agreement to raise taxes if she wins another term.

“Kathy Hochul has never met a tax she didn’t like, and Zohran Mamdani has never met one he didn’t want to raise,” Blakeman said in a statement.

“I signed this pledge to draw a hard line against tax hikes,” he added. “I challenge Kathy Hochul to sign it, too—or admit to voters that another four years will bring new taxes, reckless spending, and more broken promises.”

The Nassau County executive also renewed his promise to veto any income-tax increases if elected governor. He said he would block new Mamdani-backed levies, including proposals to significantly alter New York’s estate-tax rules, and prevent unfunded state mandates from driving property taxes higher.

According to a campaign press release, Blakeman’s pledge contains five commitments: “1. No tax increases, 2. No hidden property tax increases, 3. No new inheritance or estate taxes, 4. New revenue for tax relief — not new spending and 5. Restore New York’s competitiveness.”

The campaign cited an American Tax Foundation report that ranked New York as having the nation’s worst overall tax climate.

Hochul dismissed Blakeman’s challenge and criticized his record, pointing to his votes for higher property taxes while he served in the Nassau County Legislature.

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“Governor Hochul cut middle-class taxes to their lowest rates in 70 years, and never raised income taxes in a single budget,” Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said in a statement.

“There’s only one candidate in the race for governor who’s actually cut taxes for families and it’s not Bruce Blakeman, who jacked up property taxes twice.”

Hochul, however, has not pledged to keep taxes unchanged after the election, as Mamdani urges his “tax the rich” supporters to turn out for her Tuesday.

“I will say this. A year ago I was out campaigning with the mayor. He has returned the favor and campaigned for me and I’m grateful for that,” Hochul told reporters Wednesday.

Earlier this year, Hochul rejected Mamdani’s proposals to increase income taxes. She has, however, enacted a controversial pied-à-terre tax targeting luxury second homes in New York City.

Meanwhile, a midyear report released Friday by Hochul’s state budget office said New York is on track to collect substantially more revenue, as artificial-intelligence investment continues to drive a Wall Street boom.

The improved forecast calls for $8.6 billion more in tax revenue than projected when the state fiscal plan was approved in May. That would push the total budget to $282 billion, up from the record $277 billion plan approved just months ago.

The additional money will help replenish state reserves, which are expected to rise from $15 billion to $20 billion this year. Another $2 billion increase is planned for the 2028 fiscal year.

Despite the stronger revenue outlook, the budget office still projects a $2.9 billion shortfall in the next budget cycle, followed by gaps of $5.8 billion and $8.9 billion in the subsequent years.

Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley have filed for divorce after three years of marriage.

The Daily Mail can confirm that Antonoff, the 42-year-old music producer known for his work with Taylor Swift, and Qualley, 32, formally filed the paperwork on Friday.

The former couple have also submitted a settlement agreement, although the document is still being processed by the court. The terms have not yet been made public.

Antonoff and Qualley began dating in 2021 before marrying two years later, in August 2023.

But just days after Swift married Travis Kelce, reports emerged that Antonoff and Qualley had quietly separated.

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Antonoff and Qualley for comment but has not yet received a response.

Questions about their relationship began after Antonoff attended Swift and Kelce’s star-studded wedding with his sister Rachel in July, rather than Qualley, who was filming Possession at the time.

Around the same time, it emerged that Qualley had quietly removed photographs from the couple’s August 2023 wedding from her Instagram account.

Qualley and Antonoff were last seen together publicly at the Grammys in February 2026, where they appeared affectionate as they mingled with fellow music stars.

The gallery of snaps featured several throwback photos from the celebration. Though the original link no longer leads to a functioning webpage, a Qualley fan page on X reposted them.

A review of Qualley’s Instagram feed now shows no photographs of Antonoff, including images from around their August 2023 wedding.

Her latest social media post involving her husband was an Instagram Story marking his birthday on March 31. The post disappeared after the platform’s 24-hour expiry period.

The image showed the musician with his arm around Qualley, who wrote in the caption: ‘Happy birthday sweetheart.’

On April 28, Qualley also changed her Instagram username from @isimostar to @sarahmargaretqualley23.

The change is particularly notable because Antonoff released a 2024 song titled Isimo with his band Bleachers.

Qualley’s absence from the wedding of the year came 11 months after she gave an awkward response to being asked why her husband was not producing one of Swift’s albums.

The actress appeared caught off guard when Today co-host Craig Melvin mentioned The Life of a Showgirl in their sit-down.

After noting that Antonoff has ‘produced for Taylor for years’ and has ‘an album that’s coming out,’ the journalist asked Qualley to ‘tell us about’ the record.

‘I don’t know anything,’ she replied as her eyes widened in surprise.  

Qualley proceeded to let out an awkward laugh before adding, ‘I’ll be excited to listen to the music.’

Melvin responded with a pointed, ‘OK. Alright,’ signaling he wasn’t entirely convinced she was as out of the loop as she claimed.

Antonoff has served as Swift’s primary co-songwriter and producer on her most recent albums, 2022’s Midnights and 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department. 

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Her latest record, however, was produced by Max Martin and Shellback. 

Swift fans famously swarmed Qualley and Antonoff’s wedding rehearsal dinner in 2023.

The couple were engaged the year prior after being romantically linked in 2021.

They married at Parker’s Garage in Long Beach, New Jersey, with guests including Swift, model Cara Delevingne and Lana Del Rey in attendance.

The daughter of actress Andie MacDowell was the epitome of elegance in a white, halter-styled wedding gown with a plunging neckline. 

The former couple was first romantically linked back in August 2021, and later attended the Critics’ Choice Awards together in March 2022, seemingly publicly confirming their budding relationship. 

Just two months later in May, the beauty sparked engagement rumors when she was seen wearing an eye-catching diamond ring while at the Cannes Film Festival. Later that same month, it was confirmed Antonoff had popped the big question. 

In 2024, Qualley said she had experienced love at first sight with Antonoff.  

In an interview with Elle UK, she reflected on the early days of her romance with the music producer.

Just two weeks after meeting the Grammy winner, she knew she wanted to marry him and confided in creative director Virginie Viard at the Chanel haute couture show in the summer of 2021.

‘I’d met Jack probably two weeks before, but I was head-over-heels in love right away,’ Qualley revealed. ‘I had a sure, knowing feeling that he was my husband.’

Keeping to her word, Qualley and Antonoff did in fact get married on August 19, 2023, which was almost exactly two years to the day that she made her profound prediction.

In an interview on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, Antonoff said that he knew he would marry Qualley the ‘second’ they first met at a party in 2021.

‘I saw her, and it was like a f***ing Hallmark movie that doesn’t seem believable. When I met her, I started imagining things that I’d never even imagined, like marriage.’

Before their marriage, Antonoff was notably in a five-year romance with actress Lena Dunham, which ended in 2017.

He then dated model Carlotta Kohl from 2018-2020. 

Qualley made her acting debut in the drama film Palo Alto (2013), but she would gain worldwide recognition for her role in the hit HBO series The Leftovers (2014-2017).

The Montana native subsequently appeared in films such as The Nice Guys (2016), Death Note (2017), Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019), My Salinger Year (2020) and Poor Things (2023).

She received critical acclaim and nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards for playing Ann Reinking in the FX biographical miniseries Fosse/Verdon (2019) and the title role in the drama miniseries Maid (2021).

Antonoff is the lead singer of rock band The Bleachers, but many fans know him for his work with Swift as a co-writer and producer on her albums 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), and Midnights (2022).

The Bergenfield, New Jersey, native worked with the pop superstar on her re-recorded albums, producing most of the From The Vault tracks that were not included on the original albums.

During his career, the musician has also worked with such other musical artists as Lorde, The 1975, St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey, Florence and the Machine, Fifth Harmony, The Chicks, Carly Rae Jepsen, Clairo, Tegan and Sara and Kevin Abstract, among others.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s utility rebate checks are arriving in New York households, just days before voters decide whether to give the governor another term.

The payments began going out in September and will continue through December. An estimated 8.2 million households are set to receive between $100 and $200.

The $1 billion rebate program was included in the state budget approved in May. Hochul has promoted the payments as relief for rising energy bills, which have climbed between 27% and 46% during her tenure.

But Bruce Blakeman, the Republican Nassau County executive challenging Hochul in the November 3 election, has branded the checks a “big election-year scam.”

Blakeman previously dismissed the payments — calculated using income reported on 2024 tax returns — as “peanuts” and questioned how much difference they would make for New Yorkers struggling with everyday expenses.

Blakeman is not the only figure criticizing the rebate checks.

On Monday, two senior aides to Mayor Zohran Mamdani also criticized one-time payments, arguing that they “disempower” residents without addressing the underlying drivers of high costs, AMNY first reported.

“One-time handouts disempower people,” Mamdani’s Chief of Staff Elle Bisgaard-Church said at the New York City Policy Forum. “Means-tested programs segregate and encumber people. Private sector capture extracts wealth and tilts programs away from public welfare.”

Lina Khan, another Mamdani appointee and chair of the New York City Economic Development Corporation board, expressed a similar view, saying New York needs a broader, systemwide shift to help residents.

“This is not as much about one-time checks. This is not about one-time tax breaks,” Khan said, pointing to corporate greed as a factor driving sharply higher costs.

“It’s really about how do we address some of the upstream drivers,” said Khan, who served as chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden.

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Bisgaard-Church and Khan were not speaking specifically about Hochul’s rebate program.

Khan also did not weigh in when the state’s program was discussed later during the forum.

City Hall, meanwhile, expressed support for Hochul’s rebate plan in a statement issued Friday.

“We welcome all solutions that deliver for working families, including shorter-term solutions that provide immediate relief to working New Yorkers and longer-term structural changes that alleviate their key cost burdens,” a Mamdani spokesperson told The Post. “Our North Star is creating shared economic security and stability through material programs.”

Still, the apparent tension between Mamdani’s aides and policies such as Hochul’s rebate program underscored the sharp divide between the democratic socialist mayor and the moderate governor. The two appeared together on the campaign trail for the first time just three days before the policy forum.

Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America allies have repeatedly urged Hochul to embrace their “tax the rich” agenda. The mayor’s fervent young supporters have even booed her at previous appearances alongside Mamdani.

Hochul has pledged not to raise income taxes, although she did support the controversial pied-à-terre tax, which was intended to generate millions of dollars for the city.

Hochul’s resistance to Mamdani’s left-wing policies could be weakening as she seeks to win over his voter base Tuesday while pursuing a second four-year term.

On Wednesday, Hochul declined to say whether she would give in to Mamdani’s campaign to “tax the rich” if re-elected, offering instead a vague, word-salad response.

“There are no quid pro quos for us supporting each other I want to have a relationship with the mayor of New York,” she said — refusing to repeat her past comments outright opposing Mamdani’s tax plans.

Hochul and Blakeman were separated by around 14 points a week ahead of the election, with the Democratic governor leading her GOP challenger about 54% to 40%, a Sienna University poll found.