Alaska is a state that has grown used to being far from the capital and governed, all the same, by its moods. On November 3 its voters will choose a senator under a ranked-choice system of their own design, and the race — between the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, the Democrat Mary Peltola, and a retired teacher from Petersburg named Daniel J. Sullivan — is close. Peltola is narrowly ahead in the polls. And from Washington, eleven days before Election Day, has come a paper the likes of which American elections have not seen: a Justice Department lawsuit asking a court to stand ready to block certification of the result, but only under one condition — that the Republican loses.
The suit’s logic, as CNNBC’s Garrett Downs reported, rests on the confusion that may arise when two men share a name. The department argues Alaska should not certify the outcome if, in its words, “(1) Senator Sullivan does not win the election; and (2) had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sullivan and Alaska’s rank-choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election.” The possibility of confusion, the government concedes, is for now only a possibility. The remedy it seeks is very concrete.
Attorney General Todd Blanche spent Sunday morning defending the filing on television. “What we’re asking the court to do is make sure that after the election, if it’s clear that there was confusion, if it’s clear, and that’s for a court to decide at a later date if there’s litigation ... and that confusion led to an unjust, improper result that is not the will of the Alaskan voter, we want to make sure that the Alaskan system and the Alaskan state courts and the Alaskan electoral process can understand that in a way that lets them do the right thing,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. Then he went further: “Never before have opponents gone to such lengths to try and thwart and cheat in an election as they’re doing in this case.”
The second Sullivan
The man at the center of the storm is a former teacher who announced his candidacy in June. Republicans have argued for months that he is a Democratic plant placed on the ballot to siphon votes; Democrats say they have no connection to him, and Daniel J. Sullivan himself has denied running to confuse anyone. Alaska’s Division of Elections briefly struck him from the ballot that month — an official cited a “determined effort and a deliberate attempt” to confuse voters, as CBS News recounted — but a state court ordered him restored, and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the decision. On the ballot, the sitting senator is distinguished as “(Registered Republican) Incumbent.”
On CBS’s Face the Nation, Blanche insisted the lawsuit is “not saying, ‘don’t certify.’” “This is the Department of Justice doing our own research under the law,” he said — an effort to “put guardrails in place” so that ballots are preserved in case a court later finds the race was decided by muddle rather than by voters. “That could be obvious from the way that they rank the Dan Sullivans, or not including a Dan Sullivan on the ballot, I don’t know yet because there hasn’t been an election,” he said. Asked why file eleven days before the vote, he said the administration had hoped the state Supreme Court “would actually issue an opinion and explain their reasoning,” adding that the president has been talking about the issue for months.
About the president’s role there is little mystery. Asked Friday about the lawsuit, Donald Trump told reporters: “Well, I’m the one that said, ‘do it.’” Blanche, asked about that remark, said he had “no idea” to whom the president was referring and would not discuss his communications with him. When CNN pressed him on whether the White House is laying the groundwork for a “doomsday” scenario in which election results are overturned, Blanche bristled: “That is crazy.”
The pushback
In Alaska, the reaction has crossed party lines — unevenly. Lisa Murkowski, the state’s senior Republican senator, wrote on X on Friday that “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. The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.” Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican, said Sunday it is appropriate “to take a look at” the Alaska situation and deferred to Murkowski’s knowledge of her state — “there are very few people that know Alaska better than Lisa” — but added, “I do mind the appearance of filing a lawsuit before we even know if the facts that would substantiate a lawsuit actually occur.”
Peltola’s campaign was blunter, calling the move “a despicable political threat to overturn an election.” “We will fight to ensure every single eligible voter in Alaska can make their voice heard and that no bureaucrat or politician from the Lower 48 can interfere with our lawful, secure elections,” said campaign spokesperson Harry Child. The campaign, along with Democratic groups and voting rights advocates, has moved to intervene in the case. Early voting is already underway.
In an unprecedented pre-emptive strike on democratic elections, the Department of Justice—acting on the President’s personal orders—demands that this Court enjoin the certification of the ongoing U.S. Senate election, but only if the President’s preferred candidate loses
The motion to intervene adds: “But the federal government has no power to impose that Hobson’s choice on the people of this State.” The groups argue the executive branch lacks legal authority over state-run elections and is attempting an unprecedented override of state administration.
What is at stake
Alaska uses a top-four primary and ranked-choice general election: voters rank candidates, the weakest is eliminated, and second choices are counted until someone holds a majority. It is a system built in Juneau, tested in state courts, and — like the state itself — jealous of its distance from Washington. It is also one of the Democrats’ best chances to flip a Senate seat on November 3, in an election that will decide control of Congress for the remainder of Trump’s term; the polls already favor Democrats in the House and possibly the Senate, and the president has been barnstorming competitive states. Trump carried Alaska by double digits in 2024.
The fear among Democrats and voting rights advocates is old and documented: that a president who denied his 2020 defeat — a denial that ended in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol — would reach into the midterms to protect shrinking Republican majorities. Whether the Alaska filing is that hand, or merely a precaution about a retired teacher’s name, a court may eventually be asked to decide. The ballots, in the meantime, are being cast.