Trump Urges Charges Against Peltola Over Second Sullivan on Alaska Ballot

More than 61,000 ballots had already been cast in Alaska through Tuesday, with President Donald Trump demanding criminal charges against Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola over the presence of a second Dan Sullivan on next Tuesday's ranked vote ballot. Trump said Wednesday he believes Peltola and the other Sullivan should be prosecuted, responding to questions about a New York Times report on campaign text messages.

The report described exchanges between members of Peltola's campaign about recruiting candidates who share the name of two-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. The campaign settled on Dan J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher in Petersburg who advanced through the state's August open primary and now appears as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation, on the Nov. 3 ballot. Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Dan J. Sullivan ineligible for the primary, writing that his candidacy declaration was filed "with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot's fairness or neutrality." The Alaska Supreme Court later found him qualified to run.

Peltola's campaign said it has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign, a statement it also issued in June. "Mary got in this race because Alaskans deserve a champion who is fighting to lower their costs and put Alaska first, and no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight," the campaign said. Dan J. Sullivan has denied running at Democrats' behest and said he had no contact with Peltola's campaign: "Zero, none, zilch," he said in June. He did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday from The Associated Press.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee repeated that it is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan, though the Times report said DSCC staffers were on texts with the Peltola campaign discussing the second Sullivan. Trump posted on social media that "Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done." He had previously directed the Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race should Peltola defeat Sullivan.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has endorsed Sullivan and is a longtime friend of Peltola, said in a statement that Alaskans "deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign: what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials." Nate Adams, a spokesperson for Sen. Sullivan's campaign, said Peltola, her campaign and senior advisers "colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit candidates to deliberately confuse and deceive voters."

Peltola, speaking in Soldotna, called the report a distraction from issues such as Sullivan's support of the war in Iran. "This is just another diversion," she said in a video posted online. "This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions."

The Times story drew partly on interviews with Peltola's former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, who was fired in August amid a campaign shake-up. The newspaper said she tried to retract her comments last week. Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, said the report would not affect the Justice Department's lawsuit, which seeks to halt certification of a possible Peltola win: "It's a dirty campaign trick, and it's good reason the Alaska Supreme Court should have permitted the candidate to have been removed from the ballot. But now it's in the hands of the voters, not litigation."

The Senate race is among a handful of contests this year that will determine control of the chamber. In 2024, the state Democratic Party sued to keep a man serving time in a federal prison in New York off the U.S. House ballot after he showed no apparent ties to the state; a divided state Supreme Court allowed him to remain, and he is on the Nov. 3 House ballot this year.