Trump administration fights to block Alaska Senate election results

President Donald Trump told reporters Friday he personally ordered the Justice Department to sue Alaska over its U.S. Senate race. “I’m the one that said do it,” Trump said, calling the second candidate on the ballot “a disgrace” and “the fake.”

PBS NewsHour posted a YouTube segment titled “Capehart and Ponnuru on Trump’s threat to block Alaska election results.” The channel’s description frames the segment as covering the week in politics, including the administration’s legal fight over the closely watched Alaska contest.

The Justice Department filed the suit Thursday in federal court in Alaska. It seeks to block certification of the November results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses and if votes cast for the other candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., would have changed the outcome under the state’s ranked-choice system. The filing argues that some of the senator’s supporters “likely will inadvertently vote for Daniel J. Sullivan.” It adds: “To guard against this danger, it is vital that Defendants not certify any election result that may be impacted by voter confusion.” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward signed the papers, citing the National Voter Registration Act. A department spokesperson said the junior Sullivan’s “candidacy was intended to mislead voters and compromise the fairness of the ballot” and that the department was acting “to ensure that this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska’s election or the will of its voters.”

Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg, finished third in the August all-party primary with 2.5 percent. Democrat Mary Peltola took 49.5 percent and Sen. Sullivan 41.4 percent. NPR later cited the raw tallies as more than 68,000 votes for the senator against 4,107 for the other Sullivan. Alaska election officials had removed the junior candidate from the ballot in June, finding his run lacked “good faith.” The Alaska Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. The general-election ballot lists the incumbent as “Dan S. Sullivan,” a registered Republican and incumbent; the other appears as “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” with no party affiliation. Election Day is Nov. 3. Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.

Peltola condemned the suit on X as “the corruption AK is fed up with,” saying Sullivan is “using his DC allies to try to keep himself in power and put his own interests ahead of Alaskans.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, also an Alaska Republican, posted that Alaskans do not need help choosing candidates and that the state had already distinguished the two men on the ballot; she said the department should never have filed. Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters the same day the suit landed that “it is not DOJ’s intention to, and it’s never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process.” He added, “I’m not trying to not have an election certified. Of course not.” On CNN days later, Blanche defended the case in a tense exchange with Dana Bash and rejected comparisons to the events of Jan. 6.