By Andrew Goudsward, David Morgan and Nathan Frandino
WASHINGTON/ANCHORAGE, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The Trump administration pressed a criminal investigation into Alaska’s pivotal US Senate race and said on Saturday it would likely take its fight over thousands of California mail-in ballots to the Supreme Court, as the midterm campaign for control of Congress entered its final weekend.
In Alaska, federal prosecutors are investigating whether aides to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola helped to recruit
a retired schoolteacher, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., to run because he shares a name with the Republican incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan. The closely contested race is seen as crucial to Democrats’ hopes of taking the Senate in Tuesday’s vote.
It is one of 35 Senate races, along with all 435 House seats, that will decide whether Trump’s Republicans keep control of Congress for his final two years in office.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow edge in the House. Losing either chamber would let Democrats block Trump’s agenda and launch investigations of an administration that has until now faced largely compliant Republican majorities.
Early voting has set a record. More than 51 million Americans have already cast ballots in person or by mail, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, up from nearly 46 million who voted before Election Day at the last midterms in 2022.
In California, a federal appeals court earlier this week ruled 2-1 that the Justice Department had failed to justify its emergency bid to force the state to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters it alleges are likely noncitizens.
“I hesitate to give a final answer, but I think probably the Supreme Court’s next on this one,” acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Fox News on Saturday, adding that any request for Supreme Court consideration would come before Tuesday’s election.
Trump has been on a campaign blitz in multiple states over the past month but is spending Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. He returns to the campaign trail on Sunday in Kansas and Iowa.
ALASKA PROBE INTENSIFIES
The US Justice Department's top prosecutor in Alaska, US Attorney Michael Heyman, said at a Friday press conference that a recent New York Times article saying there had been an effort to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had driven a "surge" of FBI resources onto the case.
Heyman said he had assigned several prosecutors to it and that investigative steps were taking place "intensely and swiftly."
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Peltola aides worked with staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to recruit Sullivan Jr.
Heyman called him a “sham candidate” but declined to say what crime may have been committed.
Peltola and the campaign committee have denied involvement in any effort to recruit the second Sullivan. The retired teacher has denied coordinating with Peltola's campaign.
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."
MICHIGAN RIFT
In Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in another closely watched Senate race, El-Sayed’s feud with the rival he beat in the primary, US Representative Haley Stevens, flared again.
El-Sayed’s campaign asked Stevens to skip his events through Election Day so as “not to distract from the central issues of the campaign,” a person familiar with the matter said. Stevens has backed El-Sayed but demanded he condemn an outside group’s ad blaming Israel for high grocery prices and apologize for past rhetoric about Israel.
“It’s certainly unhelpful to the El-Sayed campaign to have continued visible division within the party just before Election Day,” said Matt Grossman, a political scientist at Michigan State University. Polls show El-Sayed has largely consolidated Democratic support.
TRUMP’S PRESSURE CAMPAIGN ON STATES
The administration, beyond its bid to block counting of ballots from more than 20,000 California voters it alleges could be noncitizens, has sued roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking unredacted voter rolls.
The legal maneuvers have alarmed state election officials. Under the Constitution, states have primary authority over how elections are run.
On Friday, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute California election officials who defy its directives.
Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice said the efforts, while unlikely to win in court, aim at “creating uncertainty, sowing fear, distrust, chaos,” in hopes of pressuring officials such as Alaska’s lieutenant governor “to do something that they’re not supposed to do.”
Even so, 76% of US voters are confident their ballots will be counted accurately, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from September 30 to October 5, with confidence about equally high among Republicans and Democrats.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and David Morgan in Washington, Nathan Frandino in Anchorage, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, and Laura Matthews in New York; Writing by Brad Brooks and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Sergio Non, William Mallard and Edmund Klamann)
