Trump says he ordered lawsuit over Alaska Senate election

• Trump said he personally directed the Justice Department to sue Alaska.
• The requested block on certification depends on a specific hypothetical recount changing the winner.
• Mary Peltola’s campaign and voting-rights groups sought to join the case on 24 October.
• The 3 November election has not yet taken place.

Donald Trump said he personally ordered the Justice Department to sue Alaska over its coming Senate election. The department is seeking to stop officials certifying the result if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses and counting votes for another candidate named Sullivan as votes for the incumbent would make him the winner. The election is scheduled for 3 November. ¹²

The case turns on Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher who is also running for the seat. The Justice Department alleges his candidacy could confuse voters; that claim has not been tested in the election. Alaska’s courts allowed him to remain on the ballot, where he is listed without a party label as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.” The incumbent appears as “Sullivan, Dan S.” and is identified as the Republican incumbent. ²³

Alaska uses ranked-choice voting in the general election: voters rank candidates, and votes transfer as lower-ranked candidates are eliminated. The Justice Department’s proposed calculation would treat every vote for Daniel J. Sullivan as a vote for the incumbent before applying that process. In the August primary, Daniel J. Sullivan received 2.5% of the vote. ²³

Trump told reporters in Florida on 23 October: “I’m the one that said, ‘do it.’” The incumbent’s campaign said he had no prior knowledge of the lawsuit and would let it run its course. ¹³

On 24 October, Mary Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sought to intervene, as did Alaska voters, the League of Women Voters of Alaska and Common Cause. A public docket tracker, which warns that its records may be incomplete, listed an amicus filing on 23 October but did not show those intervention requests or a court ruling. No ruling was found in the reporting reviewed. ⁴⁵⁶

Footnotes

1. https://apnews.com/article/d8f4a3c7b5247cc427a05f796d7c0d82 ↩ ↩²

2. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.akd.80263/gov.uscourts.akd.80263.1.0_1.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. https://www.ktoo.org/2026/10/23/alaskans-legal-experts-condemn-federal-lawsuit-as-attempt-to-invalidate-the-vote-in-u-s-senate-race/ ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/democrats-move-to-fight-dojs-attempt-to-preemptively-block-alaska-senate-results-if-republican-loses/ ↩

5. https://www.commoncause.org/es/prensa/common-cause-and-aclu-file-to-defend-the-will-of-the-people-against-attempt-to-block-alaskas-election-certification/ ↩

6. https://www.drdocket.com/case/united-states-v-state-of-alaska-akd-2026 ↩