Donald Trump dances as he departs after speaking during a campaign rally at Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, Alaska, on October 13, 2026. Kent Nishimura/Getty
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The Department of Justice filed suit against the state of Alaska on Thursday, preemptively attempting to decertify the state’s election results—unless they win.
Their justification: Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, who served as Alaska’s House representative from 2022 to 2025, is running against two men named Dan Sullivan, and that could be pretty confusing for voters.
Dan S. Sullivan is the incumbent Republican senator; Dan J. Sullivan Jr. is a retired teacher and registered Republican running as an independent.
“Daniel J. Sullivan decided to run for Senator in 2026 as a Republican with
the intention of misleading supporters of Senator Sullivan into voting for him,” the suit alleges. “The sole purpose of his candidacy is to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.” If Peltola wins, the DOJ argued, the state should not certify the election results.
The less well known Sullivan denies any ill intent. He decided to run, he told the New York Times in August, because he was unimpressed with the current Sen. Sullivan’s leadership; he felt his name would give him “an instant megaphone.”
The lawsuit telegraphs Donald Trump’s intention to intervene in the upcoming midterm elections, in which Democrats are broadly maintaining a polling lead. But legal experts doubt the suit will go anywhere.
“The legal claim is so absurdly thin, there’s essentially no likelihood of success,” wrote Notre Dame Law School professor Derek Muller. “It is designed to win the press release rather than the litigation.”
In that, the Alaska lawsuit would join other Trump-administration attempts to sway elections since the start of the President’s second term. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy group, at least 34 federal district court decisions have temporarily halted or permanently blocked administration efforts to interfere in elections. That includes 22 judges appointed by Democratic presidents and 12 appointed by Republican presidents.
On Friday, Trump confirmed that the plan to sue Alaska came directly from his office.
“I’m the one who said do it,” Trump said to a group of reporters in Florida.