By Jacob Bogage, Luc Cohen and Bo Erickson
ROCK HILL, South Carolina, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The US Justice Department filed a revised lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block certification of Alaska's election results if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses narrowly, citing a New York Times report that Democratic operatives recruited a candidate with the same first and last names.
The suit raises the prospect of a messy fight over a contest that could determine Senate control in next Tuesday's midterm
elections.
Alaska is one of about 10 highly competitive races that will decide control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. Democrats need a net gain of four seats, and a post-election dispute in Alaska could leave control of the chamber unclear for weeks.
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy also called for a state investigation into the allegations, after the Times reported that aides to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola worked to recruit two candidates who could siphon votes from the incumbent Senator Sullivan.
“They orchestrated his sham campaign for the purpose of misleading Alaskan voters and getting Peltola elected,” lawyers for the Justice Department wrote in their amended complaint, citing the Times report.
Peltola's campaign and its lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Justice Department's amended complaint.
Reuters has not verified the New York Times report.
Trump for years has sowed doubts about the fairness of US elections and even prior to the Times report had pushed the Justice Department to file a lawsuit seeking to preemptively block Alaska from certifying Peltola, a former congresswoman, if she were to win the election.
WAVE OF SUBPOENAS
The Justice Department issued more than 40 subpoenas and document preservation requests in its probe, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
President Donald Trump told reporters earlier on Thursday: "It's hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run. Frankly, I don't know how you can allow somebody like that to run. It's so unfair.”
As campaigning enters its final few days, the White House has shelved plans for Trump to appear on Saturday in Kansas, the site of an unexpectedly competitive Senate campaign, a Republican campaign official said.
"I don't feel like I have to go to Kansas," Trump told reporters.
Instead, the president will participate in more than 20 virtual campaign appearances before Tuesday, a White House official said.
"These events give him the opportunity to highlight his accomplishments and expand his reach across the country," the official said.
The Times reported on Wednesday that Peltola aides worked with campaign lawyers and staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to recruit two candidates who could siphon votes from the incumbent Republican Sullivan, including a retired teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who is on the ballot without a party affiliation.
Peltola’s former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, who was fired in August, told the Times that Peltola was aware of the effort.
Peltola’s campaign said it “has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign.” The DSCC also denied involvement and accused Republicans of propping up candidates of their own in other races.
Jessica Levinson, a professor who specializes in election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said that as long as Daniel J. Sullivan, the challenger to the incumbent, didn’t conceal financial support, his campaign likely didn’t break any laws and political parties are allowed to mislead the public.
Policing such behavior would open the door to the government investigating why candidates choose to run and why voters support them, she said. "To the extent that people are uncomfortable with two Sullivans, I would offer you're probably going to be uncomfortable with a really high level of government intrusion into our elections as well."
TRUMP IN SOUTH CAROLINA, HARRIS IN GEORGIA
Trump held a rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday, his second visit in two weeks to a state where opinion polls show an unexpectedly close Senate race between Republican Darline Graham and Democrat Annie Andrews.
Speaking about the hotly contested Michigan Senate race, where progressive Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed holds a small lead in most polls over Republican Mike Rogers, Trump continued his identity-based attacks on El-Sayed, a Muslim, by saying at the rally that "if you're Black or if you're Jewish, and if you vote for Abdul, you're crazy."
With control of the Senate at stake, both parties are deploying their biggest names in the closing days of the campaign, with Trump stumping for Republicans and former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigning for Democrats in competitive races.
Harris stumped in Macon, Georgia, at a get-out-the-vote effort. Democrats are aiming to see Senator Jon Ossoff, who leads in polling, reelected, and hope that Keisha Lance Bottoms, locked in a tight race, can become the first woman elected as governor in the state.
Trump’s approval rating stood at 32% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday, near a record low, as Americans sour on the high cost of living and the war with Iran.
Some 43.6 million Americans had already voted as of Thursday morning, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. A total of 45.9 million voted early in the 2022 midterms.
(Reporting by Jacob Bogage in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Luc Cohen in New York and Bo Erickson in Washington, additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Richard Cowan, Nolan D. McCaskill, Ryan Patrick Jones, Tom Hals, Katharine Jackson; Writing by Brad Brooks and Costas Pitas; editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
