WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called for Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Alaska, to be prosecuted and banned from the ballot after a report said her campaign recruited a candidate with the same name as her Republican opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, to enter the race.
The report from the New York Times, based on text messages and direct quotes from Peltola's former campaign manager, details how staff members on the Peltola campaign worked with a Democratic operative from Ohio to find another Dan Sullivan to run to peel votes from the Republican incumbent senator.
"We caught them cold, and Mary Peltola should resign from the race," Trump told reporters Oct. 28. "I think she should be prosecuted criminally for what she did,
and I think that the people that participated with her should."
Trump did not identify which statute he believes Peltola violated, but the president accused the former congresswoman of committing "fraud to the public" because her campaign has repeatedly denied involvement in the recruitment of Daniel A. Sullivan, a retired school teacher. Trump has a long history of demanding the prosecution of political foes.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social earlier in the day, Trump said: "She shouldn’t be allowed to run, and neither should the FAKE Dan Sullivan!"
Polls show a tight race between Peltola and Sen. Sullivan in a state that historically votes Republican, with control of the Senate potentially hanging on the contest's outcome.
The Times report came after the Justice Department last week filed a lawsuit in federal court to block Alaska’s certification of the U.S. Senate race if Republicans lose based on the name confusion.
The lawsuit asks a federal court to declare “any result that may be impacted by voter confusion” would violate the senator’s duties under the National Voter Registration Act’s aim to “protect the integrity of the electoral process.” It asks that the court prevent the state of Alaska from certifying election results “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan.”
The Peltola campaign, in a statement to USA TODAY in response to Trump's remarks, continued to deny involvement in the recruitment efforts.
“Mary got in this race because Alaskans deserve a champion who is fighting to lower their costs and put Alaska first, and no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight," the statement said. "The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign."
In Alaska, where primaries are nonpartisan, Republicans have also backed so-called "spoiler" candidates in previous elections.
The Alaska Supreme Court in June ordered that challenger Daniel A. Sullivan must remain on the ballot, ruling that an earlier decision by the state's division of elections excluding Sullivan denied him his right to run as a candidate.
As a result, in the Nov. 3 election, Alaska's ballot features the name Daniel A. Sullivan without a party designation, while directly below is the candidate Daniel S. Sullivan, listed as a Republican incumbent.
Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an interview on Fox News after the publication of the Times report, said the recruitment efforts of a second Dan Sullivan in Alaska "should be illegal." However, he did not identify any crime that would compel the DOJ to bring charges and instead pointed to the administration's civil suit.
"It cannot be in this country that you can have an election in this country that is cheating and fraud but that there's nothing wrong and we're all OK with that," Blanche said.
Contributing: Bart Jansen of USA TODAY and Reuters
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump calls for Peltola to be prosecuted after report on Sullivan spoiler
