The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit to block certification of the U.S. Senate race in Alaska if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses the contest while another candidate with the same name is on the ballot, kicking off what many fear could become a lengthy battle between the government and states over certifying an election where the president's party is struggling.
Many members of both major political parties believe the fight over control of the Senate could come down to Alaska, where Sullivan faces Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman. Also on the Alaska ballot is a Daniel J. Sullivan from the tiny fishing community of Petersburg. He has said he decided to run on his own, but Republicans have contended he is a Democratic plant to siphon votes away from their candidate.
The lawsuit Thursday by Republican President Donald Trump's Department of Justice in federal court in Alaska demands that the state be blocked from certifying a Peltola win if Daniel J. Sullivan remains on the ballot. “The United States accordingly brings this lawsuit to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska,” the lawsuit says, contending that federal law requires states to protect the integrity of federal elections.
The legal challenge came 11 days before the Nov. 3 election and months after the final ballot was set.
The Alaska Supreme Court rejected a previous Republican effort to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot, and the state's Republican officials made the decisions about how to list him on the ballot. He will appear without a party designation next to his name, while the senator will be listed as the Republican incumbent. Alaska's ranked choice voting system also will allow voters to select both of the men if confused.
Peltola and Sen. Sullivan were top vote-getters in nonpartisan primary
The senator received more than 68,000 votes in the August primary, while the challenging Sullivan got 4,107, about 2% of the total vote. Peltola, who had previously served one term in the House, was the top vote-getter in the nonpartisan primary. Both parties expect that whoever wins in November will do so by a tight margin in a state of 738,000 people.
The campaign for Sen. Dan Sullivan did not address whether the senator supports the Department of Justice's intervention. “We'll let the DOJ complaint run its course,” campaign spokesman Nate Adams said in a text message. “Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan's strong record of delivering for Alaska.”
Daniel J. Sullivan, whose presence on the ballot is at issue in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“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,” said Devan Barber, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The Department of Justice has increasingly been used to bolster the president's political operation, targeting his enemies and suing Democratic-controlled states before the election. Democrats and many voting rights advocates have long feared that the administration will try to block certification of elections that Trump's party loses, much as he unsuccessfully tried to do when he lost the White House race to Democrat Joe Biden.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said that was unlikely outside of extreme circumstances. “It is not DOJ’s intention to, and it’s never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process," he told reporters Thursday in Virginia before the lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit was signed by Associate U.S. Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who represented Trump allies and Jan. 6 defendants before becoming one of the top appointees at the department.
Constitution gives states the power to run elections
Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the lawsuit would likely only kick in if Republicans narrowly lost the Alaska Senate race and that it 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. Elections for federal office like the Senate must comply with standards set by Congress. That division of power has frustrated Trump, who repeatedly has tried to seize control of election procedures through executive orders that courts have blocked.
The final step for a state election is formally certifying the winner, the act that the administration's lawsuit seeks to prevent, it requests, “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for. Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan."
The process in Alaska is complicated by the state's ranked choice voting system, which Trump opposes, and many expect it to take weeks before a winner is known. Also on the state's ballot is an initiative to repeal that system.
Trump has stepped up complaints about a ballot with dueling Sullivans
Trump has complained about Daniel J. Sullivan's presence on the ballot, making reference to it during a rally in Alaska this month and in repeated social media posts, including one this week where he called it “CHEATING.”
“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,” the president wrote on Wednesday.
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. 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.
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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
