WASHINGTON: As the campaign for control of the US Congress reached its final weekend, the Trump administration stepped up its legal intervention in the Alaska Senate race while the number of Americans casting early ballots neared 50 million, a record for a midterm election.
The Department of Justice accelerated its criminal investigation in Alaska on Friday (Oct 30), following reports that aides to a Democratic Senate candidate recruited a retired schoolteacher from a remote fishing village to get on the ballot because he has the same name as the Republican incumbent.
The DOJ, acting on a civil lawsuit that US President Donald Trump said he instigated, also filed further motions in an attempt to block the state of Alaska from certifying the Senate results if the Republican incumbent, Dan S. Sullivan, loses a close race on a ballot that includes the nonpartisan candidate Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.
The closely contested race in Alaska is seen as crucial for the Democrats if they hope to take control of the Senate from Trump’s Republicans in Tuesday’s vote.
PROSECUTOR ALLEGES “SHAM CANDIDATE” IN KEY ALASKA RACE
It is one of 35 races in the 100-member Senate that will set the tone for Trump’s final two years in office. Also up for grabs are all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives.
Early voter participation this cycle has set a record. More than 49 million Americans have already cast ballots, either in person or by mail, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, up from nearly 46 million who voted before Election Day in the last midterms, in 2022.
A Democratic victory in one or both chambers could result in congressional investigations of the Trump administration, which for two years has enjoyed largely compliant Republican majorities.
Trump has been on a campaign blitz in multiple states over the past month but is not scheduled to travel on Saturday, when there will be a mash-up of American traditions: politics, Halloween and college football across the country. Trump returns to the campaign trail on Sunday in Kansas and Iowa.
The DOJ’s top prosecutor in Alaska, US Attorney Michael Heyman, said at a Friday press conference that a recent New York Times article about the supposed recruitment effort had driven a “surge” of FBI resources, adding that he had assigned several prosecutors to the case and that investigative steps were taking place “intensely and swiftly”.
The Times reported on Wednesday that aides to Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola recruited Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. to run. Heyman labelled him a “sham candidate” but declined to say what crime may have been committed.
The department had already filed its civil action but, Heyman said, “when the New York Times article hit, that’s additional information that accelerated what we’ve been doing”.
Peltola has denied knowing about any effort to recruit the second Sullivan. The retired teacher has denied coordinating with Peltola’s campaign.
