President Donald Trump walks past Attorney General Todd Blanche after speaking during a roundtable discussion in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the trial seeking to prevent Alaska from automatically certifying its Senate election results if the incumbent Republican loses.
Earlier this week, he said the Justice Department could become involved in the vote certification process in a “doomsday” scenario.
Asked on CNN whether the lawsuit was setting the stage for President Trump to challenge the result of next week’s midterm elections, Blanche denied it.
This seat is considered vital for Republicans if they want to maintain control of the Senate during the second half of President Trump’s term.
The Justice Department says potential confusion around candidates with similar names is the reason for the suit, although some Democrats have argued it is actually an attempt to interfere in the democratic process.
A ballot with two Sullivans
The candidate on the Nov. 3 ballot is a retired St. Petersburg professor named Daniel J. Sullivan, whose name is remarkably similar to that of current Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The Republicans have accused Daniel J. Sullivan for presenting himself as a spoiler to try to hijack votes from the incumbent president. But the other Sullivan said the decision to run was his own and denied his candidacy was aimed at confusing voters or siphoning votes from the Sullivan Republican Party. close race against Democrat Mary Peltola, a former member of Congress.
This combination photo shows Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, left, in Palmer, Alaska, August 17, 2026, and a candidate in the Alaska Senate race, Dan Sullivan, right, in Petersburg, Alaska, July 3, 2026.
Marc Thiessen; Becky Bohrer/AP
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Marc Thiessen; Becky Bohrer/AP
The Justice Department argued in its complaint that the overlapping names risked confusing voters.
“We are not preparing the ground for the president to do this,” Blanche said anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s State of the Union, after asking whether the administration was positioning Trump to overturn a result he didn’t like.
“President Trump is not trying to take over the national election in any way,” Blanche added.
Tense interview
The exchange heated up when Bash brought up Blanche’s “apocalyptic” remark to reporters in Virginia.
Bash asked Blanche if the Alaska case risks a repeat of some of the events in the aftermath of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol. “Oh, you need to stop with that. You’re not a real person. Come on, man,” Blanche responded, calling the suggestion “crazy.”
The Justice Department’s lawsuit demanded that Alaska not “certify any election results that could be affected by voter confusion.” Blanche insisted that the more specific request for relief from the Justice Department is “not to certify whether the law is broken,” and that that would ultimately be a matter for Alaska and its courts to resolve.
Blanche suggested it was “so embarrassing” for CNN that the discussion was postponed until Jan. 6, and framed the case as a test of whether Alaska violated federal law and the Constitution by allowing a potentially confusing voting process to continue.
“States have an obligation to avoid confusion, among other things, in the minds of voters during the electoral process,” he said.
A state court and the Alaska Supreme Court guard Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot, after Republican election officials in Alaska sought to impeach him on grounds that his candidacy was intended to intentionally mislead voters. That Alaska court decision, Blanche said, “explicitly disregarded federal law.”
Democrat Mary Peltola smiles before a debate with Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan during the Alaska Senate race Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska.
Becky Bohrer/AP
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Becky Bohrer/AP
Trump claims responsibility
The suit was filed Thursday evening in federal court in Alaska and, citing the National Voter Registration Act, asks that certification be blocked after the election until the government investigates whether the votes for Daniel J. Sullivan were actually intended for the senator.
The Justice Department did not say how that decision might be made in light of the secret nature of the vote, but Trump said Friday he had ordered the matter. “I was the one who said do it,” he told reporters in Florida.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican senator from Alaska and supporter of the re-election of her colleague Sullivan, said on social media that the state had already singled out the candidates and that the department should not have pursued legal action.
State officials have already decided to distinguish the two men, with the senator appearing as “Dan S. Sullivan,” marked as a registered Republican and incumbent. Meanwhile, “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” bears no party label next to his name.
Alaska’s ranked choice system also allows voters to rank the two candidates, and in August, in the state’s primary, the senator won by more than 68,000 votes to Sullivan’s 4,107.
The lawsuit was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who had represented several people accused of participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol before joining the department.
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