Alaska’s Republican election director has joined the growing list of officials, candidates and groups calling for a federal judge to toss a lawsuit President Donald Trump ordered that could hold up the results of Alaska’s US Senate race.
The race is one of a handful that could decide which party controls the US Senate, and both parties expect it to be close.
In a motion filed Oct. 26 by the state Department of Law, Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher asked US District Judge Sharon Gleason to dismiss the Justice Department’s lawsuit, which seeks to block certification of the results if Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan narrowly loses to Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman. The filing says the president’s complaint has “no legal basis” and that Alaska should run its elections “without unwarranted interference by the United States.”
The move is particularly notable because Beecher, who was appointed by Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, donated to Trump’s 2016 campaign and, in 2023, declined to say whether she agreed with his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
And while Beecher tried to block Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher who rattled Republicans when he filed to run against Sen. Sullivan, from the ballot—a move the Alaska Supreme Court rejected—her filing argues that the issue has been decided.
“The United States lacks authority to intervene in state elections at all, much less in support of a favored candidate,” the state’s response argues. “This Court should follow the well-established principle that lower federal courts should not ‘alter the election rules’ of a state ‘on the eve of an election,’ and swiftly dismiss the complaint.”
The filing makes Beecher the latest to call for the court to toss Trump’s lawsuit. Several legal scholars have called the case unusually thin; Mary Peltola and the Alaska Democratic Party have filed a motion to dismiss; and Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has also opposed the suit.
Some election experts, like University of Kentucky Law Professor Joshua Douglas, have called the lawsuit thin even by Trump’s standards.
“This case is a press release disguised as a lawsuit,” Douglas told Alaska Public Media.
Sullivan himself has not said publicly whether he supports the lawsuit.
Instead, his campaign has said he plans to “let the DOJ complaint run its course.”
While the Peltola campaign has officially claimed that it had no hand in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan to run, reporting by The New York Times published on Oct. 28 suggests that several of her staffers at least were aware of the effort to recruit a same-name challenger.
State moves to dismiss
The filing by Beecher notes that Trump’s lawsuit fails on basic grounds because it never spells out how the one law it cites was broken, nor does it plainly call for an actual solution. Instead, it hints at a proposed solution—an investigation probing how individual Alaskans voted. Beecher argues that Trump’s attempt to intervene is the true source of confusion.
“The relief requested would cause the very injury that the United States seeks to avoid by sowing confusion and eroding trust in Alaska’s election result a week before Election Day,” the response argues. “Delaying certification of Alaska’s election results—but only if a particular candidate does not win—would interfere with state election administration and threaten election integrity.
Beecher’s filing also disputes Trump’s claims that voters are left in the dark, noting she took several steps to redesign the ballot to make it clear who is Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and who isn’t. That includes using middle initials, spelling out their names differently and removing Daniel J. Sullivan’s Republican Party affiliation.
She even went so far as to label Sullivan an “incumbent,” which is a first in Alaska elections.
But Trump claims that still isn’t enough, telling reporters that it still wasn’t fair because some Alaskans don’t know what “incumbent” means.
“People are totally confused,” he told reporters over the weekend. “They shouldn’t be confused when voting. At least let him use the name Senator Dan Sullivan as opposed to incumbent, because a lot of people don’t know what incumbent means.”
And, to be clear, state law—AS 15.15.030, Sec. 4—explicitly prohibits listing titles on the ballot, which is why “Sen. Sullivan” was never considered.
Beecher’s response also points out that the state’s voting system—ranked-choice voting—makes it easy to avoid confusion among voters who want to keep Sen. Sullivan in office: rank both Sullivans ahead of Peltola.
“If any Sullivan-supporting voter remains uncertain which Sullivan is which despite this clear differentiation on the ballot, the voter can ask for assistance from others or look up information about the candidates using a smart phone or an election pamphlet,” the state’s response argues. “And if the voter is still uncertain, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system provides another solution: the voter can rank the Sullivans as his first and second choices.”
Gleason has outlined a briefing schedule for the lawsuit that sets up a ruling as early as Oct. 30.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the newsletter on the Alaska Legislature, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
