The Trump administration has launched an eleventh-hour effort to challenge Alaska’s Senate race results—before voters have even cast their ballots.
The contest was thrown into turmoil this week after a bombshell report alleged that Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign helped place a candidate with a name nearly identical to that of her Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan, on the ballot in an effort to improve her chances.
Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are now the subjects of a criminal investigation opened by Alaska’s Republican governor over allegations that they recruited the so-called “decoy” Dan Sullivan.
Meanwhile, a separate civil case brought by the Justice Department earlier this year is examining whether Alaska can certify the election results if the incumbent, Dan Sullivan, loses.
The Cook Political Report has classified Alaska’s Senate contest as a toss-up. The closely watched race could ultimately decide which party controls Congress.
President Donald Trump has called for Peltola herself to face prosecution since the allegations emerged. He has described the matter as “fraud” and demanded that both Peltola and the “decoy” Dan Sullivan be removed from the ballot.
However, legal experts told Our News Outlet that the civil case—and Trump’s calls for federal charges—are unlikely to gain significant traction.
Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said a criminal prosecution would rest on a weak foundation and would almost certainly fail.
Legal experts told Our News Outlet that the Justice Department’s claims against Mary Peltola and the Democratic Party are unlikely to withstand scrutiny in court.
This composite shows Trump-backed Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, left, in Palmer, Alaska, on August 17, 2026, alongside another candidate in Alaska’s Senate race who is also named Dan Sullivan.
A sample ballot in Anchorage, Alaska, displays both candidates named Daniel Sullivan.
“People regularly support candidates for strategic or improper reasons,” Hasen told Our News Outlet, pointing to Republicans backing Green Party candidates and Democrats supporting Libertarians. “What happened in Alaska is simply an extreme version of that.”
“That may not prevent the Justice Department from pursuing a case,” he added. “But I believe such a claim would fail.”
Hasen said the second Dan Sullivan would likely argue that his candidacy was protected by the First Amendment. That constitutional protection, he said, would probably outweigh conspiracy allegations, regardless of how questionable the candidate’s motives may have been.
“I don’t see how the government could make it a crime to run for office simply because someone had impure motives.”
Even if prosecutors could establish the alleged conduct, Hasen said, “then every instance in which Republicans support a Green Party candidate—or Democrats back a MAGA candidate in a primary because they believe that person would be easier to defeat—could become a crime. This happens all the time.”
Using a name double as an electoral tactic is also far from unprecedented.
In 2024, Washington Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson faced two other candidates with the same name in the state’s gubernatorial primary. CNN reported that both candidates were paid by a Republican activist who hoped to confuse voters.
The tactic dates back even further. In the mid-1950s, another “JFK”—John Francis Kennedy—used the Massachusetts fame of then-Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy to win the office of state treasurer without mounting a public campaign or receiving a party endorsement.
The Justice Department’s civil case appears to focus, at least partly, on potential conspiracy allegations.
The central question is whether Democrats knowingly recruited Dan J. Sullivan on Peltola’s behalf as part of a broader effort to confuse Alaska voters or interfere with their ability to cast an informed ballot. Investigators may also examine whether Sullivan himself knowingly sought to deprive voters of that choice.
Derek Muller, an election law professor at Notre Dame Law, described the Alaska lawsuit as “one of the worst” cases of its kind he had seen.
The effort to invalidate Alaska’s results if the Democrat wins appears particularly vulnerable, he said.
Alaska election officials have taken substantial steps to distinguish the two candidates. Their middle initials appear on the ballot, with one listed by the full name Daniel J. Sullivan and the Republican incumbent identified as Dan S. Sullivan.
The ballot also explicitly labels Dan S. Sullivan as the “incumbent,” further clarifying the distinction between the two men.
Trump has nevertheless argued that voters need a “190 IQ” to complete the ballot correctly, claiming that many people do not understand what the word “incumbent” means.
As for possible criminal charges, Muller emphasized that many facts remain unknown and said a “further investigation is essential” before federal prosecutors decide whether to bring a case.
“I do wonder whether campaign finance violations were committed here,” Muller wrote in a post on the Election Law Blog.
“We will have to see how the contributions were structured and whether they were properly reported but difficult to locate in disclosure records—or whether some violated the law.”
On possible charges involving a conspiracy to violate the National Voting Rights Act, Muller said investigators would have to determine where “ordinary politics” and “dirty tricks” cross the line into conduct designed to prevent voters from making a meaningful choice.
The Justice Department filed an amended complaint Thursday, incorporating the New York Times’ startling findings published earlier this week.
“I think voters have received enough information and that the risk of genuine confusion is low,” Muller said. “But the efforts to create confusion this spring and summer could still constitute criminal conduct.”
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In its amended complaint, the Justice Department argued that Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC misled the court when they said last week that they lacked the “knowledge or information” needed to address the decoy candidate’s intentions.
The filing reviewed the New York Times report and argued that it showed the opposite: that the campaign and committee had “orchestrated the sham campaign” to mislead Alaska voters.
It remains uncertain whether the new allegations will materially strengthen the government’s case.
Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC strongly rejected the accusations in their own filing Friday, calling them “nonsense” and describing the lawsuit as a thinly disguised attempt to delay certification of the election.
“The only person who could know Daniel J. Sullivan’s true reasons for filing as a candidate is Daniel J. Sullivan,” they told the court.
The controversy over the alleged political maneuver has brought unprecedented attention to the Senate race in Alaska, the Last Frontier.
