Alaska Democrats gave Donald Trump exactly what he wanted.
The president seized on a storm unleashed by a report that Democrats aligned with Senate candidate Mary Peltola tried to confuse voters in her fight against incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan by recruiting a second candidate with the same name.
In a grim election season for Republicans, the New York Times bombshell created a rare chance Wednesday to turn the midterm election narrative away from Trump’s woeful approval ratings , high gasoline prices and the unpopular Iran war .
The alleged electoral gamesmanship, while shabby and disrespectful to voters, doesn’t seem to be illegal based on current available evidence. And Alaskans, who once voted to reelect Sen. Lisa Murkowski by writing in her name after she lost a primary, are a savvy bunch not likely to be confused by an unusual voting system that allows multi-way general election contests.
But Trump has spent years spinning false conspiracies about Democratic cheating and nonexistent electoral fraud. Now, at last he has a data point to sculpt into a suggestive narrative. And whether the OG Dan Sullivan wins or loses, the president will be sure to highlight shenanigans in Alaska to claim Democrats everywhere are corrupt — especially if the GOP bombs on Tuesday.
“This is Voter Fraud at the Highest Level … this behavior in our Elections cannot be allowed to continue,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, warming up for Election Day, while calling for Peltola to be “removed from the ballot and prosecuted.”
Alaska election officials told CNN Wednesday that there’s no role for the Trump administration in deciding who gets to run in the state’s election. “Placing candidates on the ballot is a matter of state law, not federal law,” said spokesperson Sam Curtis.
But in politics, as opposed to the law, perception has long been as important as reality. Trump understands this more instinctively than any modern president.
Peltola’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing in the recruiting of the second Dan Sullivan. And many Democrats are likely to see the antics in Alaska as fair game — and perhaps even as evidence that their party’s intestinal fortitude, in hibernation for years, has broken through the frozen tundra.
And, of course, Trump’s outrage is rather rich. After all, he tried to junk an entire presidential election in 2020, including with his request that Georgia election officials “find” sufficient votes to hand him the swing state.
Republicans, however, will argue that Democrats — after warning democracy is under siege by Trump — are hypocrites. That’s inevitable in a rough-knocks political climate. Conservative media Wednesday evening was already looping on Democratic “dirty tricks” in Alaska. Any novice strategist could try to exploit the story to anger Alaskans and stall Peltola’s momentum; brand a possible Peltola victory as illegitimate; and foster the idea that all politicians are corrupt in order to make Trump’s long history of meddling seem like business as usual.
Sen. Sullivan told Sean Hannity Wednesday evening on Fox News that it was time for his Democratic opponent to “come clean.”
“She’s the corrupt one working with DC insiders to trick Alaskans,” Sen. Sullivan said. “So what we’re going to do is we’re going to make sure every single Alaskan knows about this.”
Election skulduggery has been part of America’s political story ever since Thomas Jefferson’s bitter 1800 election campaign against President John Adams. But this has been a devastating decade for faith in American democracy. Trump’s false claims that he was cheated out of power in 2020 became the foundation of his successful 2024 presidential run, suggesting many of his tens of millions of supporters bought into his false conspiracy theories. Trump appointees must still adopt the charade that President Joe Biden didn’t win that election.
And the president is up to his usual tricks days before Election Day, declaring that he’ll only recognize the result of the midterms if he considers them fair. A further blow to trust in the election system seems inevitable if Republicans lose their congressional majorities and Trump claims fraud to save face. And if Democrats played shady games in Alaska, they’ll deserve some of the blame.
There are more immediate questions that will play out before and after Election Day.
The idea that Alaskans will struggle to tell the Dan Sullivans apart was undermined by a state Supreme Court ruling in June that declined to have Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, removed from the ballot also featuring Sen. Dan. S. Sullivan. And the ballot paper clearly identifies the latter as the Republican “incumbent.”
Some experts, meanwhile, believe that Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system — against which Trump has frequently railed — would eventually funnel votes meant for Sen. Dan Sullivan to their rightful recipient anyway.
The furor over the New York Times story and follow-up news coverage makes it even less likely voters will be befuddled by their ballot.
The Department of Justice, acting on Trump’s orders, had already filed suit to block certification of the Senate result in Alaska should Sen. Sullivan lose — even though the Constitution gives the federal government and the president no role in administering state elections.
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday quickly brandished the New York Times report to signal an intensified legal battle. Asked on Fox News whether the candidate drama in the Last Frontier state was illegal, he answered, “It certainly should be. That’s why there’s an investigation, and that’s why we have law enforcement.”
But people are not prosecuted for something that “should be” illegal and isn’t. If a probe turns up nefarious activity in the race, there will be a case for a legal process under existing state or federal laws. But there’s no sign yet that’s applicable here based on current evidence.
“There’s no question that this is remarkably politically clumsy and embarrassing for (the Peltola) campaign,” Ben Ginsberg, a renowned election lawyer, told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Wednesday. “But there’s not an illegality here. And for better or for worse, and actually for worse, coming up with phantom candidates, ghost candidates, is something both parties have probably done.”
But long odds never stopped Trump legal challenges and appeals before. Sen. Sullivan is entitled to any legal remedies under election laws. But the president has a particular flair for mounting frivolous legal challenges to delay undesirable consequences. If voters deliver a rebuke in the midterms, the Alaska affair is certain to run and run.
Ginsberg didn’t completely rule out the extraordinary scenario of a challenge to any Peltola victory when new senators arrive to be seated in the new Congress next year. This would stoke uproar and further poison an already toxic Capitol Hill. But Trump’s conduct in 2020 shows he may be willing to go the mat. And should the currently GOP-held Alaska seat decide who controls the Senate — a plausible scenario — it’s not hard to imagine that chaos could erupt.
Some Democrats may question the point of the alleged Dan Sullivan shopping spree that’s now casting a shadow over the endgame of a race in which Peltola seems well positioned. In a New York Times/Siena poll on Saturday, the Democrat held a 51 to 45% lead over Sullivan.
But Republicans now have an easy new campaign conceit — Democrats can’t win a fair election. “They’re trying to confuse voters, they’re trying to cheat because they know their policy agenda just doesn’t work for people in Alaska,” said Bryan Lanza, a former Trump adviser, effortlessly executing the layup on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” Wednesday.
It’s hard to judge in real time how this new twist in the case of the two Dan Sullivans influences the final hours of the bitter campaign. It does seem unlikely that vast numbers of voters will sudden switch their preferences.
But Alaskans could deliver an unequivocal result, and it’s up to them to decide who they want as their junior senator. In a democracy, especially in one as recently tested and abused as America’s, that’s exactly how it should be.
