Mary Peltola has asked a federal judge to throw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if she wins narrowly, calling the case “wholly baseless” and warning that it raises profound constitutional concerns. The Peltola Alaska lawsuit, filed late on Sunday by lawyers for her campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, asks U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason to dismiss the Justice Department case this week, just seven days before the November 3 midterm elections.
On Monday, Gleason agreed to fast-track the case, although she did not say when she would rule on the Justice Department’s request. In a brief order signalling scepticism, she noted that the lawsuit was filed after Alaskans had already begun casting ballots for the November 2026 election, and nearly four months after the Alaska Supreme Court directed the Division of Elections to include Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot.
Peltola, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alaska, is challenging Republican incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan in a race that could help decide control of the chamber. The Justice Department sued in federal court in Anchorage on October 22, arguing that a third candidate, another Republican named Dan J. Sullivan Jr., is on the ballot with the intention of misleading supporters of the senator into voting for him.
The department asked a judge to block certification of an outcome that may have been affected by voter confusion, so that officials could investigate whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant for Senator Sullivan. The test set out in the filing, as reported when the case was launched, was a loss by the senator combined with a finding that he would have won if all votes for the other Sullivan had gone to him.
Peltola’s filing turns that argument on its head. Her lawyers say the case is an unlawful attempt by the federal government to intervene in election administration, a responsibility the Constitution assigns to the states. “DOJ’s complaint is wholly baseless. The fact that DOJ nonetheless chose to file it raises profound constitutional concerns,” lawyers for Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wrote.
The campaign has asked Gleason, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, to dismiss the case this week. That timetable matters because early voting is already under way in Alaska and the election itself is on November 3. A ruling this week would settle, at least at district-court level, whether the federal challenge can proceed before votes are counted and certified.
The name at the centre of the dispute belongs to Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg. He has denied that his aim is to cause confusion, and the Alaska Supreme Court in June permitted him to appear on the ballot. That June decision is now central to Peltola’s argument: the state’s highest court has already ruled on his ballot place, and Gleason’s order pointedly notes how much time passed before the federal lawsuit arrived.
Alaska’s Senate race has been tight in public polling. A Data for Progress survey conducted October 8 to 16, reported when the Justice Department filed its case, put Peltola at 47 percent, Senator Sullivan at 44 percent and a third candidate at 1 percent, with a ranked-choice simulation giving Peltola a 51 to 49 lead. Polls are snapshots, not results, and campaigns on both sides have treated Alaska as a genuine battleground rather than a safe seat.
Peltola previously represented Alaska in the U.S. House of Representatives, and her Senate bid is one of a small number of contests that could determine whether Republicans retain their narrow majorities in Congress. The Justice Department’s lawsuit therefore carries significance well beyond one state’s ballot design: it signals, in Reuters’ words, the administration’s willingness to contest the results of the November 3 midterms.
That context also explains why the case has drawn national attention. The administration has spent months demanding detailed voter registration lists from states and suing officials who refuse to hand them over, in what it describes as an effort to secure elections. Critics, including Democratic and some Republican election officials, view the moves as federal overreach into a field the Constitution leaves primarily to state legislatures and state election administrators.
The legal question is narrower than the political argument, and it is where the case may be won or lost. Federal courts can hear claims that a specific federal law has been violated, but they do not ordinarily run state elections or decide, after the fact, which candidate a voter meant to support. Peltola’s lawyers argue that the Justice Department is asking Gleason to do exactly that: to hold certification hostage while investigators second-guess the intentions behind votes already cast for a lawfully listed candidate.
The Justice Department’s position, as set out by Blanche, is different. He told CNN’s “State of the Union” programme on Sunday that the lawsuit was filed to help officials determine whether any voter confusion violated the law. “President Trump is not trying to take over a state election in any way, shape, or form,” Blanche said.
Trump himself has endorsed the lawsuit. When the case was filed, he told reporters: “I’m the one that said do it.” That public backing has made it harder for the administration to present the case as a routine enforcement action, and Peltola’s team has seized on it as evidence of political purpose.
State election officials are the defendants in the case, including Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher. The state has not, in the reporting to date, agreed to the Justice Department’s demand to hold certification. The dispute is therefore not only between the two campaigns: it pits the federal government against the state officials who actually run Alaska’s elections.
Peltola had already condemned the lawsuit in blunt terms before her lawyers filed for dismissal. She called it “desperate” and “clearly corruption” when the Justice Department first went to court, language that reflected how seriously her campaign views a pre-emptive challenge to certification.
Blanche’s Sunday television appearance was the administration’s most detailed public defence so far. By framing the case as an inquiry into whether confusion broke the law, he sought to lower its temperature. He did not, in the remarks reported by Reuters, explain what specific federal statute would authorise a judge to block certification on that basis, which is precisely the gap Peltola’s filing exploits.
Election law experts have been similarly sceptical. Reuters reported that experts said the lawsuit has no merit and seeks relief not allowed under federal law. Earlier commentary on the filing described it as strange and unusual, and questioned whether the Justice Department had any authority to bring it at all, given that the ballot question had already been litigated in the Alaska courts.
A Justice Department spokesperson said when the case was filed that the agency was taking necessary steps to ensure that what it called a frivolous candidacy did not undermine the integrity of Alaska’s election or the will of its voters. That statement has not been matched, in public reporting, by evidence that voters have actually been misled in significant numbers.
Certification is the unglamorous step that turns votes into results. State officials check the count, resolve any lawful challenges and formally declare a winner. If a federal court could block that step whenever a losing side alleged confusion, every close race would become a potential federal case, and the final result would depend less on ballots and more on litigation.
The Alaska case also sits inside a wider pattern of pre-election challenges. The Justice Department has separately asked Washington state to set aside ballots from more than 400 suspected noncitizens, and it made a similar demand in California involving up to 20,000 people, where a federal appeals panel questioned the timing, constitutionality and authority of the request during rare Sunday arguments. Readers can follow that parallel dispute in our earlier report: Washington ballots row: DOJ demands 400 suspected noncitizen votes set aside.
For voters, the immediate risk is confusion of a different kind. Headlines about blocked certification can make a lawful election sound disputed before a single ballot is counted. Peltola’s argument is that the lawsuit itself, filed a week before the election, risks doing the damage it claims to prevent: sowing doubt about a result that has not yet happened.
For the Senate, the stakes are concrete. Republicans are battling to retain narrow majorities in both chambers, and Alaska is one of the races that could tip the balance. A delayed or contested certification in Alaska would not only affect that state’s representation; it would feed a national argument about the legitimacy of the midterms themselves. Our original report on the filing is here: Alaska Senate lawsuit: DOJ wants certification blocked if Sullivan loses.
The money flooding into the midterms adds another layer. More than $1 billion in dark-money spending has already poured into the campaigns, with Texas and other battlegrounds drawing the largest sums, as detailed in Dark money midterms 2026: $1 billion in secret cash floods US races. In that environment, a court fight over certification becomes part of the campaign, not just a legal sideshow.
The next step is Gleason’s. Peltola’s campaign has asked for a dismissal ruling this week, and the judge’s decision to fast-track the case suggests she understands the calendar. She could dismiss the case outright, allow it to proceed to fuller briefing, or narrow the relief the Justice Department is seeking. Any of those outcomes could then be appealed, although an appeal filed after the election would face the same timing problem that already troubles the case.
The Justice Department will have an opportunity to respond to the dismissal motion, and state election officials will also be heard. Until Gleason rules, the lawsuit remains live, but it does not by itself stop Alaskans from voting or stop the state from counting ballots. Certification is the step the department wants blocked, and that step comes after Election Day.
Voters in Alaska should therefore watch two dates: November 3, when polls close, and the days that follow, when the count and any certification challenge unfold. If Gleason dismisses the case this week, the certification fight ends before it begins. If she does not, the argument over two similar names on a ballot could become one of the first legal battles of the post-election period.
Either way, the case has already made its point, for both sides. For the administration, it shows a willingness to challenge results before they exist. For Peltola, it provides a closing argument about federal intrusion into a state election. Voters will have the final word on November 3, provided the courts let certification follow the count.
Dan S. Sullivan is the Republican incumbent senator seeking re-election. Dan J. Sullivan Jr. is another Republican candidate, a retired Petersburg schoolteacher, who has denied trying to mislead voters. The Justice Department argues the similarity could confuse voters; the Alaska Supreme Court allowed him on the ballot in June.
It wants a federal judge to block certification of a narrow Peltola victory so officials can investigate whether votes for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant for Senator Sullivan. Peltola’s lawyers say no federal law authorises that relief.
No. Peltola has asked Judge Sharon Gleason to dismiss it, and Gleason agreed on Monday to fast-track the case, but she has not yet ruled on dismissal or on the Justice Department’s request.
Alaskans had already begun casting ballots when the Justice Department sued on October 22, and the election is on November 3. Gleason noted both points, and Peltola argues that a late federal challenge to a ballot settled by the state supreme court in June comes too late to be fair.
Only if a court blocks certification or orders some other remedy after the vote, which experts cited by Reuters say federal law does not allow on these facts. The more immediate effect is political: it frames the Alaska race as a test of federal versus state control over elections.
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