Trump says he gave the order for the Alaska lawsuit
President Donald Trump acknowledged directing the administration to file the case on Friday. The Republican president’s Justice Department filed the complaint late Thursday in federal court in Alaska, asking the state to withhold certification of a Mary Peltola victory if a second candidate named Dan Sullivan remains on the ballot. Arriving for a campaign rally in Florida, Trump said: “I’m the one that said do it.”
The complaint says, “The United States accordingly brings this lawsuit to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska,” and asks the court to block certification “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan.” Certification is the formal final step in a state election. The legal challenge came 11 days before the Nov. 3 election and months after the final ballot was set.
The dispute centers on Daniel J. Sullivan, a candidate from Petersburg, a tiny fishing community, who said he decided to run on his own. Republicans have contended that he is a Democratic plant and fear his presence on the ballot could siphon votes from the incumbent in what is likely to be a photo-finish contest with Democrat Mary Peltola, the state’s former congresswoman.
The Alaska Supreme Court rejected a previous Republican effort to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot, and both a state court and the Alaska Supreme Court kept him there. The state’s Republican officials made the ballot-listing decisions: he will appear without a party designation next to his name, while Sen. Dan Sullivan is listed as the Republican incumbent. Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system also allows voters to select both men if confused.
Mary Peltola and Sen. Dan Sullivan were the top vote-getters in the nonpartisan primary. Sen. Sullivan received more than 68,000 votes in the August primary, while Daniel J. Sullivan received 4,107, about 2% of the total vote. Peltola, who previously served one term in the House, was the top vote-getter, and both parties expect whoever wins in November to do so by a tight margin in a state of 738,000 people.
Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the lawsuit would likely become active only if Republicans narrowly lose the Alaska Senate race and probably would not survive long. “The statute simply doesn’t let the Department of Justice enjoin certification,” Muller said. “The lawsuit could well be mooted by a wide Democratic victory or a narrow Republican one, and if not, the court will likely dismiss it next month.”
The U.S. Constitution grants states the power to run their own elections, while elections for federal office such as the Senate must comply with standards set by Congress. That division frustrated Trump, who repeatedly tried to take control of election procedures through executive orders that courts blocked.
In a statement Friday, the Justice Department said Alaska’s election officials, who are Republicans, had determined that Daniel J. Sullivan’s campaign was an attempt to “mislead” voters and wanted him removed from the ballot. Both a state court and the Alaska Supreme Court disagreed and kept him on it. The department added: “The Justice Department, consistent with the National Voter Registration Act enacted by Congress, is taking the necessary steps to ensure that this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska’s election or the will of its voters.” The complaint was signed by Associate U.S. Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who represented Trump allies and Jan. 6 defendants before joining the department as one of its top appointees.
At a forum in Anchorage Friday night, Peltola called the lawsuit “just flagrant, flagrant corruption in my opinion.” She said the legal fight was “another diversion from the issue that Alaskans want to talk about, which is affordability” and an example of how her Republican opponent was “using his connections in Washington, D.C., to manipulate the situation.” Peltola also said: “I am very concerned about Alaskans’ voices not being heard.”
Alaska’s other Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, criticized the filing in a social media post. She wrote, “Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot,” and added, “The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.” Murkowski has endorsed the incumbent Sullivan.
The campaign for Sen. Dan Sullivan did not address whether the senator supports the Justice Department’s intervention. Spokesman Nate Adams said in a text message: “We’ll let the DOJ complaint run its course,” and: “Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan’s strong record of delivering for Alaska.” Daniel J. Sullivan did not respond to a request for comment. Devan Barber, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said: “Donald Trump knows that Dan Sullivan is going to lose the election, so now his Department of Justice is filing a sham lawsuit to overturn the will of Alaska voters and steal an election when he loses.”
The Associated Press said many feared the filing could become a lengthy battle between the government and states over certifying an election in which Trump’s party was struggling. It also characterized the case as “the latest example of the Department of Justice bolstering Trump’s political operation, targeting his enemies and suing Democratic-controlled states before the election.” The Associated Press also reported that Democrats and many voting-rights advocates had long feared the administration would try to block certification of elections Trump’s party loses, much as Trump unsuccessfully tried after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Concerns about the Justice Department’s role in elections had already intensified this month after it filed a last-minute lawsuit demanding that California segregate ballots from 20,000 voters whom the Trump administration believed could be noncitizens. California said it appeared many of those identified were indeed citizens and that the state had no time to investigate carefully, as the administration threatened to prosecute the state’s election workers if illegal voting occurred. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche denied the California action was a prelude to challenging certification of midterm results in that state, saying such a move may happen under a “doomsday” scenario but was unlikely. “It is not DOJ’s intention to, and it’s never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process,” Blanche told reporters Thursday in Virginia before the Alaska lawsuit was filed.
Trump has complained repeatedly about Daniel J. Sullivan’s presence on the ballot, raising it during a rally in Alaska this month and in repeated social media posts, including one this week in which he called it “CHEATING.” On Wednesday, the president wrote: “We are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot, and holding the Democrats accountable for their Election Interference, in the pursuit of Justice and Fairness.”
Alaska’s process is complicated by its ranked-choice voting system, which Trump opposes, and many expect it to take weeks before a winner is known. Voters also have an initiative on the ballot to repeal the system.
Clogging a ballot with third-party candidates to siphon off votes from the other major party is a long-standing tactic in the country’s two-party system, the Associated Press reported. Republicans have been linked to an effort to persuade Ohio voters to support a socialist in that state’s Senate race, which could help Republican Sen. Jon Husted fend off a challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, Haven Daley in Anchorage, Alaska, Ali Swenson in New York and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to the report.