The Justice Department (DOJ) has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska's Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola, reports The Associated Press. The suit was filed because President Donald Trump is concerned that the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan could siphon enough votes away from incumbent Sen. Sullivan to give the election to Peltola.
The New York Times reports that the Peltola campaign worked with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to deliberately recruit the second Sullivan to run. In the summer of 2025, Peltola reportedly told a staffer to find as many people in Alaska named Dan Sullivan as possible. She then talked one of them, now referred to as Decoy Dan, into running for Senate as a Republican against the incumbent of the same name, then got him on Tuesday's ballot for the sole purpose of confusing Alaska voters.
According to The Hill, Peltola is denying the findings from The Times, despite the major newspaper citing multiple text messages and documents of Peltola's campaign aides and lawyers and DSCC staffers encouraging Decoy Dan and others to run.
Jim Minnery, president of Alaska Family Council, says because of the state's ranked choice voting method, Peltola will be running against two Dan Sullivans.
"It was fishy from the very beginning. There were rumors that Peltola was in Petersburg where Decoy Dan initially put his hat in the ring," Minnery says.
Especially when they looked into the background of Decoy Dan.
"It was very obvious that he had been in liberal circles most of his life, never had been engaged in the political realm. Then, all of a sudden, he's now getting his name on the ballot for U.S. senator," Minnery states.
Now a proactive president isn't sitting back and waiting to file post-election litigation.
"He has instructed the Department of Justice to look into this because, I think, it's very accurate to say that it was nefarious activity that got Decoy Dan on the ballot." Minnery says.
Robert Knight, a columnist for the Washington Times, is also pleased with the DOJ's actions.
"It's encouraging to see the Justice Department going after what is obviously an attempt at vote fraud, putting a guy in the ballot with the same name who happens to vote Democrat and donate to Democrats, and he's on there as an independent. It's fraud," Knight states.
Knight also agrees that this confusion wouldn't be happening if Alaska conducted normal primaries instead of ranked choice voting.
"Ranked choice voting is a very flawed system that Democrats have put into effect in Alaska and in Maine and in some other jurisdictions, and it is geared toward electing Democrats. It confuses the process," Knight says.
As he says, it calls on voters to select candidates they don't even like.
"it paves the way for the confusion we're seeing in Alaska today with a guy by the same name as the U.S. senator on the ballot specifically because of ranked choice voting and because the Democrats placed him there to try to muddy the waters and elect their candidate," Knight states.
Meanwhile, Minnery says there is an upside to the whole Decoy Dan drama as it's gotten Alaska pastors to engage.
"As an organization, as a ministry, we've been working actually closely with Sen. Sullivan on reaching the church. We've had a record number of pastors who have actually personally endorsed Dan Sullivan," Minnery says.
