Trump says he personally pushed the Justice Department to sue to stop the Alaska Senate results from being certified if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses in November. Asked Friday about the lawsuit, which DOJ filed Thursday in federal court in Anchorage, Trump said, “Well, I’m one that said, ‘Do it.'”
Certification is the official step where state election officials sign off on the final vote count and make the winner official. This lawsuit was filed before Election Day on November 3, which means the administration is trying to set up a challenge to results that don’t exist yet.
The fight comes down to a name. Two Dan Sullivans are running in the Alaska Senate race. Dan S. Sullivan is the two term Republican incumbent. Dan J. Sullivan is a retired fifth grade teacher from Petersburg who filed to run as a Republican three days before the deadline.
Alaska uses a top four primary, meaning candidates from every party run on one ballot and the four with the most votes move on to the general election. Dan J. Sullivan finished third in August, behind the senator and Democrat Mary Peltola, so both Sullivans will appear on the November ballot.
Alaska also uses ranked choice voting. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference, and if nobody gets a majority, the last place candidate is eliminated and those votes move to each voter’s next choice until someone crosses 50%. DOJ’s lawsuit argues that if votes cast for Dan J. Sullivan would have gone to the senator instead, and that would have changed the outcome once the ranked choice count played out, Alaska should not certify the result.
The suit asks the court to declare unlawful any result “impacted by voter confusion” and to block election officials from certifying it until there is an “investigation” into whether voters who meant to choose the incumbent picked the other Sullivan by mistake. To justify federal involvement, DOJ points to the opening language of a federal law that sets rules for how states handle voter registration, which mentions protecting the “integrity of the electoral process.”
Trump framed the second Sullivan as a Democratic plant. “So, the Democrats put up a guy, I don’t think he ever voted before, all of a sudden he decides to run for the Senate,” he said.
Republicans have made that accusation for months. The senator and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have called Dan J. Sullivan a “sham candidate” meant to pull votes away from the incumbent and help Peltola. Peltola’s campaign has denied any involvement with either Sullivan campaign, and Dan J. Sullivan says he has had no contact with her team. He says he moved to Alaska in 1980 and is running under the name he was born with. “My name is my name,” he said.
The courts have already weighed in on whether he belongs on the ballot. State election officials removed him in June, saying his filing was not made in good faith. A state superior court judge reversed that decision, and the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed it on June 29, ordering that he be allowed to run. The incumbent now appears on the ballot as Dan S. Sullivan to help voters tell them apart.
Legal experts are questioning whether DOJ has any power here at all. Justin Levitt, who served in the Justice Department under Obama, said no law gives DOJ the authority to challenge ballots or delay a state’s certification. Elections are run by the states, and certifying the Alaska Senate results is a job that belongs to Alaska’s own election officials.
On the same day the suit was filed, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters that it is never DOJ’s intention to “improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process.” A DOJ official described the situation as “unique.”
Sen. Sullivan kept his response short. “We’ll let the DOJ complaint run its course,” he said.
The stakes are high. Peltola, who held Alaska’s only seat in the House of Representatives from 2022 to 2025, has already won statewide before, and Democrats see the Alaska Senate seat as one of the pieces they need to take back control of the Senate.
