Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Seeking to Block Certification of Alaska Senate Race
A federal judge on Sunday, 1 November 2026, dismissed a lawsuit that sought to block certification of Alaska's U.S. Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses. Certification is the official step in which election authorities confirm the results. The case was filed by the Justice Department, and NPR and CNBC both reported the dismissal.
The lawsuit was backed by President Donald Trump. On 23 October, Trump said he had ordered the Justice Department to file it, and the department filed it less than two weeks before Election Day. The Justice Department argued that voters could be confused by two candidates named Dan Sullivan appearing on the November ballot.
The Democratic nominee in the race is Mary Peltola. The second Dan Sullivan is a separate candidate, and the dispute over him has become the center of the campaign's final stretch.
According to a New York Times investigation, aides from Peltola's campaign recruited another man named Dan Sullivan to join the race in order to draw votes away from the incumbent. Republicans, including Trump, have called for Peltola to be disqualified from the race and criminally prosecuted over that second candidacy. Peltola has denied knowledge of any such scheme. Asked by a reporter whether any of her staff had been involved, she said she had "no idea."
The Washington Post has reported that Republicans tried to boost unviable Democratic candidates in the Alaska primaries, and that a Republican super PAC, an outside political spending group, backed two Senate candidates who did not live in Alaska.
Sullivan addressed the wider dispute in a CNN interview on Sunday morning, saying that he would accept the results of his upcoming election.
Alaska's Senate race now moves toward Election Day with the lawsuit dismissed and the competing accusations over the two candidates unresolved in public. Each side has described the other's conduct in its own terms, and the underlying questions about how the second Dan Sullivan entered the race are the subject of the reporting and claims summarized above.
