What happened

Attorney General Todd Blanche went on CNN on Sunday to defend a Justice Department lawsuit that could hold up certification of Alaska's Senate election. The suit, filed late Thursday in federal court in Alaska, asks that the state not certify results affected by voter confusion over two candidates with nearly identical names.

On the Nov. 3 ballot, voters will see incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan — and Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher from Petersburg. Republicans have accused the challenger of running as a spoiler to siphon votes from the incumbent. The challenger says the decision to run was his own and denies trying to confuse anyone.

The race itself is tight. Sullivan faces Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman, and the seat is one Republicans need to keep [control of the Senate](/article/independent-senate-hopefuls-gain-steam-voters-tire-both-parties) through the second half of President Donald Trump's term. The department's case cites the National Voter Registration Act and argues the name overlap risks confusing voters.

Why it matters

The interview turned tense when CNN anchor Dana Bash pressed Blanche on his earlier remark that the department could step into vote certification in a "doomsday" scenario, and whether the Alaska case risked a repeat of the post-2020 election fights. Blanche rejected that suggestion as "crazy" and said Trump is not trying to take over a state election. "We're not laying any groundwork for the president to do that," he said.

State courts have already weighed in once. A state court and the Alaska Supreme Court kept Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot after Republican election officials tried to remove him, arguing his candidacy was meant to mislead voters. Blanche argued those rulings never weighed federal law — and framed the federal case as a test of whether Alaska violated federal law and the Constitution by allowing a potentially confusing ballot.

The department's position, as Blanche described it, is narrower than blocking certification outright: don't certify if the law was broken, and leave the final call to Alaska and its courts. One gap remains unanswered. The department has not explained how it would tell which votes were meant for which Sullivan, given the secret ballot — and that question sits at the center of the case.

The pushback is not only coming from Democrats. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's other Republican senator and a supporter of Sullivan's reelection, said on social media that the state had already distinguished the candidates and that the department should not have sued. The ballot lists "Dan S. Sullivan," marked as a registered Republican and the incumbent, and "Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.," with no party label. Alaska's ranked-choice system lets voters rank both men; in the August primary, the senator won more than 68,000 votes to the other Sullivan's 4,107.

Trump himself claimed the case on Friday, saying he ordered it: "I'm the one that said do it." The suit was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who previously represented several people accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol before joining the department.

What it means for the US

A federal lawsuit over certifying a Senate result, days before voting ends, is something every other state will watch. If a court accepts that a confusing ballot can pause certification, similar challenges could follow in other close races — and a certification delay in even one state can slow the national picture of who controls the Senate. For voters, the practical message is narrower: the case does not change how Alaskans vote on Nov. 3, and the ballot already separates the two Sullivans by middle initial, party label, and incumbency. The real fight is over what happens after the votes are counted — and who gets to say a result is final.

What happens next

Alaska votes on Nov. 3, and the [midterm elections](/article/us-midterm-elections-2026-explained) will decide Senate control the same night. The federal case now moves through the courts, and whether certification is actually paused will depend on a judge's ruling and on the margin. Watch for the court's first decision, the state's formal response, and whether the department presses similar claims anywhere else before results are certified. The earlier filing in this same dispute is covered in our report on [the lawsuit itself](/article/doj-sues-delay-alaska-senate-result-two-sullivan-ballot-fight).