A New York Times investigation<\/a> revealed that a Democratic operative connected to Ms. Peltola\u2019s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee enlisted Daniel J. Sullivan to run as part of a broader effort to recruit independent and third-party candidates who might peel votes away from the incumbent.<\/p>\nGov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, has ordered a criminal investigation into the Peltola campaign even as the state elections division, overseen by his lieutenant governor, also a Republican, fought the Trump administration\u2019s civil lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Ms. Peltola and national Democrats have denied any connection to Daniel J. Sullivan\u2019s candidacy, and they joined the civil case as additional defendants along with national Democrats, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, a self-described nonpartisan government watchdog organization.<\/p>\n
Daniel S. Sullivan, the incumbent senator, promised in an interview with CNN Sunday to support any election results but also suggested, without offering explanation or details, that the election could be \u201cstolen.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its defense in the Justice Department\u2019s lawsuit, lawyers with the state of Alaska noted that state courts had already rejected an attempt by the state\u2019s elections agency to take Daniel J. Sullivan off the ballot and that the final ballot was designed to differentiate between the two men: It lists the senator as \u201cDan S. Sullivan\u201d and notes his party affiliation and incumbency, and the other man is \u201cDaniel J. Sullivan Jr.\u201d with no party affiliation included.<\/p>\n
Alaska also uses ranked choice voting in state and federal general elections, meaning voters are familiar with the system. Any voter confused by the existence of two Dan Sullivans could simply rank both candidates.<\/p>\n
Judge Gleason had already expressed skepticism of the Trump administration\u2019s case in a ruling last month agreeing to a speedy hearing. In that order, she pointed out that the federal lawsuit came after Alaskans had already begun casting ballots for November and nearly four months after the Alaska Supreme Court directed the state Division of Elections to include Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot.<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s dismissal ruling, she noted that federal lawyers, in their filings, said they were not attempting to interfere in the time, place and manner of Alaskan elections \u2014 matters the U.S. Constitution leaves in the hands of states.<\/p>\n
But, Judge Gleason said, the federal government\u2019s proposed answers to any voter confusion were \u201ca court order preventing the State from certifying the election if certain circumstances occur; a court order requiring the State to segregate and preserve certain ballots; and a court order permitting the United States to conduct an investigation into the intent of those voters who cast ballots for Daniel J. Sullivan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese requests certainly involve the time, place, and manner of Alaska\u2019s election,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
If anything, the judge added, such federal intervention amid an ongoing election would cause the precise sort of voter confusion the administration says it is trying to prevent.<\/p>\n
Bayliss Wagner and Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge in Alaska has dismissed the Trump administration\u2019s lawsuit that pre-emptively challenged the results in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,651,1452,859,46937,9,24,63,5285,855,1069],"class_list":["post-390342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-democratic-party","tag-donald-j","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-republican-party","tag-senate","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}