President Donald Trump is demanding that Alaska’s Senate race be changed after a report revealed that Democratic operatives allegedly helped recruit a candidate named Dan Sullivan to challenge Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. But amid Trump’s accusations of election fraud, one important fact is getting lost in the political firestorm: recruiting a candidate to run against an opponent is not, by itself, illegal.
Trump lashed out Wednesday after The New York Times reported that staff members associated with Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) participated in an effort to recruit a challenger who shared the Republican senator’s name.
The president called the effort illegal and demanded that Peltola face “Legal and Political consequences.”
“It has just been determined that the Democrats in Alaska illegally searched for, and recruited, a man named Dan Sullivan to run against our distinguished Republican Senator, Dan Sullivan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He claimed the effort was designed to confuse voters and steal votes from the incumbent. Trump then insisted that Sullivan should be allowed to run without Peltola or what he called “FAKE Dan Sullivan” on the ballot.
But Trump’s accusations go much further than the legal facts currently establish.
Recruiting a Candidate Is Not a Crime
Political campaigns routinely recruit candidates to enter races for strategic reasons, including to divide an opponent’s support, attract voters from a particular constituency or change the dynamics of a contest.
In Alaska, where candidates advance through an open primary and voters use ranked-choice voting in the general election, recruiting additional candidates can be a political tactic. That doesn’t automatically make it a crime.
Libby Bakalar, an attorney who previously worked for Alaska and represented its Division of Elections, was blunt when discussing the newly reported recruitment effort.
“Not a single illegal thing happened here,” Bakalar told Alaska Public Media. She added that candidates can be strategically recruited in a system with open ballot access.
Her comments directly challenge Trump’s suggestion that the recruitment effort itself amounts to illegal election interference. The reported strategy may draw criticism from voters and political opponents, but a clever campaign tactic is not automatically an unlawful one. Any separate allegations of fraud or false statements would need to be supported by evidence of specific legal violations.
The distinction is especially important because Trump has already directed the Justice Department to intervene in the race.
Two Dan Sullivans, One High-Stakes Election
The controversy centers on two candidates with nearly identical names.
The incumbent, Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, is facing Democrat Mary Peltola, a former Alaska congresswoman. Also on the ballot is Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from Petersburg, Alaska.
The New York Times reported that the recruitment effort began in 2025, when people associated with Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC explored recruiting a candidate who shared the incumbent’s name. According to the newspaper, former Peltola campaign manager Elisa Rios described the effort and said campaign officials were involved in discussions about potential challengers.
The report was based on interviews, documents and text messages. Rios was fired by Peltola in August and reportedly later tried to retract her comments to the newspaper.
Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement with either Sullivan campaign, while Dan J. Sullivan has said his campaign was not connected to hers. The DSCC has also denied involvement with his campaign.
The reporting has intensified Republican claims that the second Sullivan was recruited to siphon votes away from the incumbent. But the report does not, on its own, establish that Peltola personally directed the effort or that a crime occurred.
Trump’s latest outburst comes after his administration filed a federal lawsuit seeking to prevent Alaska from certifying the Senate election if the incumbent loses under certain circumstances involving votes cast for the other Sullivan.
The Justice Department argues that voters could confuse the two candidates and that the confusion could affect the result. The state of Alaska is fighting the lawsuit, arguing that federal officials have no legal basis to dictate how the state certifies its election.
Alaska’s Supreme Court had already ruled in June that Dan J. Sullivan could remain on the ballot. The state now distinguishes the candidates by listing the incumbent as the Republican senator and the challenger as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., without a party affiliation.
The state has also pointed out that voters using ranked-choice voting can rank both Sullivans, potentially reducing the risk that a voter who wants the incumbent accidentally loses the opportunity to support him.
Election-law experts have questioned the federal lawsuit’s legal foundation. Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard Law School professor who studies election law, called the complaint exceptionally weak, arguing that the federal statute cited by the Justice Department concerns voter registration rather than control over ballot design or state election certification.
The Alaska contest could help determine which party controls the Senate, raising the stakes for both parties. Trump has campaigned for Sullivan and has repeatedly criticized the presence of the second candidate with the same name.
The latest report gives Republicans fresh grounds to question the tactics used by Peltola’s political allies. At the same time, the president’s demand that his preferred candidate be allowed to run without his opponents raises a different question: whether political outrage should be enough to reshape an election already underway.
Recruiting a candidate is a familiar feature of American political campaigning. Unless specific conduct violates an identifiable law, calling the strategy “fraud” does not make it illegal.
With Election Day approaching, Alaska voters—not a presidential demand—will ultimately determine whom they want to represent them in the Senate, subject to the rules governing the election.
