Justice Department seeks to block Alaska Senate certification if Dan Sullivan loses

Alaska Supreme Court rejected earlier efforts to remove the namesake candidate

The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Thursday to bar Alaska from certifying the results of a closely fought U.S. Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses and the margin is smaller than the other Sullivan’s vote total. The department argues that including Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot could lead voters to cast votes for the wrong candidate. Polls suggest Democrat Mary Peltola holds a narrow lead in the final days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

The government wants the judge to bar state certification if Sen. Sullivan’s margin of loss is smaller than the other Sullivan’s vote total. If Peltola wins and the margin of loss suggests possible confusion, the filing calls for certification to be delayed pending an investigation into whether voters were mixed up on the names.

The suit also asks for “necessary and appropriate” steps to determine what would have happened had Dan J. Sullivan been kept off the ballot. Neither Dan Sullivan nor Mary Peltola had commented on the lawsuit by publication time.

In the filing, Associate Attorney General Stanley E Woodward Jr asserted that the sole purpose of Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy was to benefit Peltola’s campaign by reducing the number of votes for the senator. Woodward argued that “Given the substantial likelihood that the inclusion of Dan J. Sullivan will confuse or mislead voters looking to cast a vote for Senator Sullivan and thus distort the will of Alaskan voters, there is a substantial likelihood that a certification of the election will reflect an electoral process that lacked integrity.”

The Justice Department also argued that Alaska “will fail in its obligation to protect the integrity of its elections” if it included “any electoral results tainted by the inclusion on the ballot of Daniel J Sullivan.”

Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher and US Forest Service worker, repeatedly denied those claims. He told the Petersburg Pilot that he “wouldn’t even know who to speak to” in Peltola’s campaign. In a separate interview with Courthouse News, he said that it is his “sincere hope that people know who and what they are voting for but ultimately, choice is good and voters’ intent will be as varied as the candidates who are running”.

Dan J. Sullivan was reportedly once a member of the Alaska Independence Party before registering as a Republican earlier this year. The Alaska Supreme Court rejected previous efforts to remove him from the ballot. The current ballot lists Dan Sullivan as the Republican incumbent, while Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means voters could select both candidates if they were unsure at the ballot box.

President Donald Trump had referred to the second Sullivan’s candidacy as a “scam” and said his administration was looking at “powerful legal options” to prevent him from running.

The Senate race is among the most closely watched contests in the Nov. 3 midterms. Trump won Alaska by 14 percentage points in 2024, but BBC News reported that his approval ratings in the state had been badly hit by voter disapproval of rising prices and the war in Iran.