President Donald Trump said Friday he told the Department of Justice to sue the state of Alaksa and its election officials over its U.S. Senate ballot which includes two candidates named Dan Sullivan.

“I’m the one that said ‘do it,’” Trump told reporters as he arrived in Florida Friday afternoon.

The Trump administration has said it aims to stop Alaska from certifying the Senate race result if Republican Senator Dan Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola, amid concern votes for another candidate named Dan Sullivan could have changed the outcome of the ranked-choice vote.

A lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday against the state of Alaska and various election officials alleges that the Republican candidate listed on the ranked-choice ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race intending to mislead voters into backing him instead of the incumbent with the same name.

“So, the Democrats put up a guy, I don’t think he ever voted before, all of a sudden he decides to run for the Senate,” Trump said. “The Daniel J. is the fake and he wants to change his middle initial to “S,” and he says this has nothing to do with politics.”

Speaking later at his rally, Trump said, “That’s not so dumb. Actually, it’s cheating like hell.”

Trump has repeatedly accused Democrats of planting Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, to confuse Alaska voters. In a social media post earlier this week, Trump—who has endorsed the incumbent—called his presence on the ballot a “scam” that could threaten Senator Dan Sullivan’s potential victory in what has become one of the closest Senate contests this year.

“Even 1, 2, or 3 percent could make the difference,” the president wrote. “Dan S. Sullivan is leading by a lot, but this is CHEATING In an Election, and the Judge that allowed this to happen should be ashamed of himself.”

Senator Dan Sullivan is currently 2.7 points behind Peltola, according to VoteHub’s poll tracker, underscoring how potentially consequential even a small number of votes could be.

A spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign told Newsweek Friday, “This is a despicable political threat to overturn an election, designed by Senator Dan Sullivan’s allies to suppress the voices of Alaskans because Sullivan is terrified he’ll lose the seat that has allowed him to enrich himself at Alaskans’ expense for over a decade.

“We will fight to ensure every single eligible voter in Alaska can make their voice heard and that no bureaucrat or politician from the Lower 48 can interfere with our lawful, secure elections,” the spokesperson said.

Why the DOJ is Suing Alaska

Dan J. Sullivan was a member of the Alaska Independence Party until it dissolved late last year, only registering as a Republican when he filed his candidacy in the Senate race earlier this year.

Alaska election officials initially agreed that the retired teacher’s filing was intended to confuse voters and sought to exclude him from the ballot. But an Alaska trial court ruled against that exclusion and the Alaska Supreme Court summarily affirmed that decision, putting Dan J. Sullivan back on the ballot.

The lawsuit hinges on whether the votes cast for the “decoy” Sullivan, a retired teacher, would have changed the winner under Alaska’s ranked choice voting system if they had instead been cast for the Trump-endorsed incumbent.

It would also require an investigation into whether Alaskans who cast their vote for Dan J. Sullivan actually intended to vote for the incumbent, and it would allow further procedures to determine what the election result would have been without the alleged voter confusion.

“Alaska’s Division of Elections determined that Mr. Daniel J. Sullivan’s candidacy was intended to mislead voters and compromise the fairness of the ballot,” a DOJ spokesperson told Newsweek. “Therefore, the Justice Department, consistent with the National Voter Registration Act enacted by Congress, is taking the necessary steps to ensure that this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska’s election or the will of its voters.”

Newsweek contacted the White House, Alaska Division of Elections, and both Sullivans’ campaigns for comment by email on Friday morning, outside of standard working hours.

What Election Experts Think of the DOJ Lawsuit

“The lawsuit is based on very real and valid concerns about voter confusion,” Michael Morley, the Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Election Law Center at the Florida State University, told Newsweek.

“The Alaska secretary of state concluded Daniel J. Sullivan is not an actual good-faith candidate but rather was running only to confuse or mislead voters. Having said that, the DOJ’s lawsuit Is completely meritless,” he added.

The DOJ sued under the National Voter Registration Act, Morley said, but does not even allege that the statute has been violated here. “Rather, the DOJ is claiming that allowing the election’s results to be impacted by a sham candidacy would undermine the law’s purpose. That’s not a valid basis for suing,” the professor said.

“Moreover, any concerns about the sham candidacy could have been raised before the election, before votes were cast. Indeed, Alaska courts refused to allow election officials to remove him from the ballot,” Morley added.

The professor believes the lawsuit will be “quickly” dismissed. “If Senator Dan S. Sullivan loses, and Daniel J. Sullivan’s vote tally exceeds the margin of victory, then the senator’s best bet would be to file an election contest with the U.S. Senate, which is the sole judge of its members’ elections and returns. The Senate can decide for itself whether to accept such results.”

Professor Mark Brown, of Capital University School of Law, agrees. “No federal statute authorizes the relief the DOJ seeks and the Alaska Supreme Court has already concluded that Dan J. Sullivan was illegally under Alaska—and federal—law removed from the ballot,” he told Newsweek. “The Alaska Supreme Court thus restored his name to the ballot. DOJ’s lawsuit is frivolous.”

How Are the Two Sullivans Running for the Alaska Senate Race?

Six years ago, Alaska narrowly passed a ballot measure shifting the state to a ranked choice voting system allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

Ballot Measure 2, which got 50.55 percent of the vote in 2020, created the non-partisan primary and the four-candidate ranked choice voting general election that The Last Frontier is now using.

Under this system, which Alaska shares with only one other state in the country, Maine, the top four candidates from each respective primary in the state earlier this year, whether for governor, the House or the Senate, are set to appear on the ballot on November 3, regardless of party affiliation. Voters have the option to rank them in order of preference, though they can also choose one candidate only if they prefer so.

A candidate who receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes wins outright. If no one passes this threshold, then the candidate who comes in last place is eliminated, and those who selected that candidate first will have their second-choice vote counted. The process continues until one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote.

This system is why four candidates are on the ballot in the Alaska Senate race, including Democrat Mary Peltola and Republicans Sen. Dan Sullivan, Dan J. Sullivan Jr., and Gerald Heikes.

The Trump administration, in the DOJ lawsuit filed Thursday, claimed that “the sole purpose of [Dan J. Sullivan’s] candidacy is to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.”

In June, when Dan J. Sullivan was reinstated on the ballot, the retired teacher and fishing enthusiast said that he is running because he is disappointed with Sullivan’s representation and wants change for the state.

“It’s a free country,” he said, as reported by Courthouse News Service. “Most Alaskans are proud Independents and it’s my sincere hope that people know who and what they are voting for but ultimately, choice is good and voters’ intent will be as varied as the candidates who are running.”

The newly published ballots show that Alaska election officials have come to something of a solution to solve the debate around the two Sullivans. The ballots list incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan as a ”Registered Republican” and mark him as the “Incumbent.” The retired teacher appears under his full name, “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.,” without a party designation displayed beneath his name.

A Key Race for Control of the Senate

Democrats have a chance to seize control of the Senate in the midterms, with Republicans currently holding a narrow 53-47 majority.

While most of the seats up for grabs in the upper chamber are in states where Trump has won by comfortable margins in 2024, the unpopular war in Iran and rising inflation in recent months have turned many of these races into unexpectedly competitive ones.

Alaska, a state which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, has now become a key battleground in the fight for control of the upper chamber, with Peltola gaining ground over the Republican incumbent.

Building on voters’ growing anger over higher prices, Peltola—an Alaskan who supports oil, gas and gun rights—has focused her campaign on the cost of living, trying to appeal to moderate Republicans disappointed with the Trump administration and independents as well as Democrats. Polls show that her strategy may be working.

Who Is Leading the Latest Polls?

With less than two weeks ahead of Election Day, every poll released this month gives Peltola a narrow but consistent lead over Sullivan, while the other two candidates typically receive less than 5 percent of the vote in the first round.

A poll released by progressive pollster Data for Progress earlier this month and conducted between October 8 and October 16 among 675 likely voters, gives Peltola ahead with 49 percent of the vote while Sullivan had 46 percent of the vote in the first round of the election. Dan J. Sullivan had 4 percent of the vote and Heikes only 1 percent. In the final round, Peltola’s lead had grown to 51 percent to Sullivan’s 49 percent. The poll had a margin of error of ±4 percentage points.

The Democratic candidate received 48 percent of the vote in an InsiderAdvantage poll conducted between October 9 and October 10, while Sullivan had 43 percent of the vote in a four-way ballot. Dan J. Sullivan Jr. and Heikes received 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent of the vote, respectively, while 5.3 percent of likely voters were undecided.

In the second round of voting, without Dan J. Sullivan and Heikes, 50.1 percent of the vote went to Peltola and 48.0 percent to the incumbent. The poll was conducted among 1,200 likely voters and had margin of error of ±2.83 percentage points.

Americans Want Trump to Accept Outcome of Midterms

A new YouGov survey shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans want the president and his administration to accept the outcome of the midterm elections, no matter the result. According to the poll, conducted on October 22, 2026, among 8,694 U.S. adults, 71 percent of Americans think Trump should “accept the results” if Republicans lose their majority in the U.S. House.

The opinion Is bipartisan: 87 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, and 61 percent of Republicans said the same. Only 8 percent of all voters said Trump should not accept the results, while 21 percent said they were not sure.

YouGov has not released a similar poll on the Senate.