Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche (R) leaves after meeting with Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) at the U.S. Capitol on August 5, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to block the certification of the Alaska Senate election narrowly lost to Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The lawsuit, filed last week, alleges likely voter confusion over the name of former teacher Daniel J. Sullivan, who also appears on the ballot. The Justice Department said the turmoil surrounding the Sullivans could lead to a victory for former Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who has a narrow lead in polls with just over a week until Election Day.
“What we are asking the court to do is for the court to decide at a later date whether there is a lawsuit if it is clear that there was confusion after the election…and that confusion led to an unjust and improper outcome that was not the will of Alaska voters. “We want to make sure that the Alaska system, the Alaska state courts, and the Alaska election process understand that in a way that allows them to do the right thing,” Blanche said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Never before have the opposition gone to such lengths to try to disrupt and rig an election as they did in this case,” he said.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit says there is potential for voter confusion and that Alaska should not certify the election if “(1) Sen. Sullivan had not won the election; and (2) Sen. Sullivan would have won the election if all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan in place of Sen. Sullivan had been cast and Alaska’s ranking process had unfolded accordingly.”
Alaska uses a top-four primary system to select candidates for the general election. The November general election will use ranked-choice voting.
Ranked voting allows voters to rank candidates based on their preferences. If no candidate receives a majority of votes at the first counting stage, the candidate receiving the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who ranked the excluded candidate first will have their second choice counted and added to that candidate’s total. This continues until a majority winner or the candidate who receives a majority of votes wins.
This combo shows Sen. Dan Sullivan (left) on August 17, 2026 in Palmer, Alaska, and Alaska State Senate candidate Dan J. Sullivan (right) on July 3, 2026 in Petersburg, Alaska.
AP Photo | Mark Thiessen | Becky Bowler
Republicans have been trying for months to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot, claiming he is a Democratic supporter intent on confusing voters. Democrats say they have nothing to do with the candidate, and Sullivan himself denies running to confuse voters.
The Alaska Department of Elections temporarily removed Daniel J. Sullivan in June, but a state court ordered his name back on the ballot. The state Supreme Court upheld that decision.
President Donald Trump, who has long claimed voter fraud without evidence, said he had personally ordered the Justice Department to file a lawsuit.
Democratic groups and voting rights groups, including Mr. Peltola’s campaign, are seeking to join the lawsuit to block the Justice Department’s efforts to block the certification of the election if Sen. Sullivan loses. The group argues that the executive branch lacks legal authority to intervene in national elections and is attempting to override state election administration in an unprecedented manner while early voting is already underway.
“In an unprecedented pre-emptive attack on a democratic election, the Department of Justice, on the personal orders of the President, asks this court to halt certification of the ongoing U.S. Senate election, but only if the President’s preferred candidate loses,” the motion to intervene reads. “But the federal government does not have the power to impose Hobson’s choice on the people of the states.”
Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska poses for a photo in her Cannon Building office on Thursday, February 9, 2023.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
Alaska is seen as one of the best chances for Democrats to flip the Nov. 3 election that will determine control of Congress for the remainder of President Trump’s term. President Trump has been aggressively attacking competitive states in recent weeks, as polls show Democrats taking the House majority and potentially flipping the Senate.
Democrats and voting rights advocates have long feared that Trump, who lost the 2020 election to former President Joe Biden and has denied inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would try to intervene in the midterm elections to save the small Republican majority in Congress.
Blanche bristled Sunday when asked whether the lawsuit was aimed at swaying Alaska’s elections in favor of Republicans.
“That’s crazy,” Blanche said on CNN, asking whether the president was setting the stage for a “doomsday” scenario in which he tried to overturn the election results.
“We’re not laying the groundwork for the president to do that…The groundwork we’re laying is that if the issue comes up after the election, the state of Alaska will have the authority to determine whether there was confusion that violated the law in deciding who the senator should be.”
