Trump says he ordered the Justice Department's lawsuit over Alaska's US
Senate race
[October 24, 2026]
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI
President Donald Trump on Friday said he told his administration to file
its lawsuit to block certification of the U.S. Senate race in Alaska if
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, 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.
“I'm the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters as he landed for a
campaign rally in Florida.
The lawsuit, filed late Thursday, centers on one of the president's
longstanding complaints in the Senate race — the presence of a second
candidate named Dan Sullivan, who Republicans fear could siphon away
votes from the incumbent in what's likely to be a photo-finish contest
with Democrat Mary Peltola, the state's former congresswoman.
The second Sullivan, who is Daniel J. Sullivan from the tiny fishing
community of Petersburg, 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 by the Republican president'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.
The legal challenge came 11 days before the Nov. 3 election and months
after the final ballot was set. It is the latest example of the
Department of Justice bolstering Trump's political operation, targeting
his enemies and suing Democratic-controlled states before the election.
At a forum in Anchorage Friday night, Peltola called the lawsuit “just
flagrant, flagrant corruption in my opinion." She told reporters that
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.”
“I am very concerned about Alaskans' voices not being heard,” Peltola
said.
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 2020
White House race to Democrat Joe Biden.
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.
Alaska’s other Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, alluded to that in a
social media post criticizing the lawsuit. “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,” wrote Murkowski, who has endorsed the incumbent
Sullivan. “The Department of Justice should never have filed this
lawsuit.”
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 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.
In a statement Friday, the Department of Justice noted that Alaska's
election officials, who are Republicans, determined the other Sullivan's
campaign was an attempt to “mislead” voters and wanted him removed from
the ballot. Both a state court and Alaska's Supreme Court disagreed and
kept the second Sullivan on the ballot.
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President Donald Trump listens as Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska,
speaks at a campaign rally at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports
Center, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Wasilla, Alaska. (AP Photo/Alex
Brandon)
"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
department's statement said.
Concerns about the Department of Justice's role in the election had
already reached a fever pitch this month after it filed an unusual,
last-minute lawsuit demanding California segregate ballots from
20,000 voters who the Trump administration believed could be
noncitizens. California said that it appeared many of those
identified were indeed citizens and that they had no time to
carefully investigate, as the administration threatened to prosecute
the state's election workers if there was illegal voting.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche denied the action was a prelude
to challenging certification of the midterm results in that state,
adding that 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," he told reporters Thursday in Virginia before the Alaska
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 lose
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.
___
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 this report.
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