A court fight over Democrats’ alleged attempt to siphon votes away from Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) could be just the start of Republicans’ plans to contest the Alaska election results.
Alaska’s GOP-run elections office could refuse to certify the race, in effect putting the outcome in limbo if Mary Peltola, Sullivan’s Democratic opponent, is declared the presumptive winner next week.
In the Senate, Republicans could object to Peltola being seated in the new Congress even if the election is certified in her favor, a challenge that relies on the constitutional power of senators to be the “Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.”
That fight depends on a host of factors, foremost among them Sullivan losing his race on Tuesday, when he will compete against Peltola and a second candidate whose name is also Dan Sullivan. Republicans argue the second Sullivan was recruited into the race to sow confusion, an allegation substantiated on Wednesday by a bombshell New York Times report.
Republicans would also have to navigate a tricky path to contesting Peltola’s election with few other modern precedents.
They are expected to lose a Justice Department-initiated court battle that preemptively seeks to block certification of the election if Peltola narrowly wins, but Republicans could try to delay the process in other ways.
There is the matter of whether voters mistakenly marked the wrong Sullivan, a possibility Alaska has attempted to minimize by using both of their middle initials and listing Dan S. Sullivan as the incumbent.
Already, Attorney General Todd Blanche has requested an investigation into that possibility.
The other argument, floated by President Donald Trump, is that Peltola should be prosecuted for criminal conduct. Her campaign denies any involvement in the apparent Sullivan scheme, but the New York Times story and prior reporting could be used to call into question her fitness to serve.
On Thursday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK) asked the state’s Department of Public Safety to investigate whether any laws were broken and later confirmed to Fox News that charges, if any are brought, could apply to Peltola.
“If it leads to that individual, the candidate, then so be it,” Dunleavy said.
So far, it’s unclear how far Republicans would go to contest an election loss. The lieutenant governor, Nancy Dahlstrom, basically functions as secretary of state in Alaska and led an unsuccessful push to disqualify Dan J. Sullivan from the ballot earlier this year.
If the outcome of the race is called into doubt by Republicans, she and her elections office could delay Peltola’s certification.
The process for contesting a candidate’s election is murkier in the Senate, but would likely begin with one or more of Trump’s allies objecting to Peltola being sworn into office. That ceremonial step takes place in early January, at the outset of the new Congress.
Even Vice President JD Vance could, in theory, refuse to administer the oath of office to Peltola, raising a crisis akin to the one Vice President Mike Pence avoided when he certified the election results for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University with expertise in Senate rules, said that before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, it was easy to “come up with a lot of hypotheticals and they’re not politically realistic.”
“But I don’t think you can rule much out anymore, as much as it pains me,” she said. “You have to rule everything in potentially. So could the vice president go rogue? Sure.”
From there, congressional leadership would have to decide how to handle the impasse, with three cases over the last five decades to draw on as precedent.
The Senate swore in Democrat Mary Landrieu “without prejudice” in 1996, giving her full privileges until allegations of fraud could be reviewed in the Senate rules committee. That panel ultimately found voting irregularities, but not enough to overturn a close race decided in her favor.
The more contentious scenario would be akin to 1976, when Republicans filibustered until a new election was held for a Senate seat in New Hampshire. The original result was so close that recounts flipped back and forth between the two party candidates.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), as an institutionalist, is less likely to go along with a challenge if Alaska certifies the results. On Thursday, he said the best way to hold Democrats “accountable” is to “beat them” on Election Day.
The path Republicans take is not entirely up to him, however, given that an individual senator has enough privileges to grind floor business to a crawl.
Trump, for his part, left open the possibility of Republicans not seating Peltola on Thursday, telling reporters, “You’re going to have to see what happens.”
“It’s hard to believe that she could be allowed to run,” Trump said. “Frankly, I don’t know how you can allow somebody like that to run. It’s so unfair when you look at that.”
In the House, Republicans have already begun using their oversight powers to request interviews with two Democratic operatives reported to be involved in the recruitment of Dan J. Sullivan.
The scrutiny is unfolding as Republicans brace for the possibility that they could lose their Senate majority next week, when Alaska and a half dozen other Republican-held states are seriously in play.
Early in the cycle, Democrats were considered underdogs to retake the Senate, but that sentiment has shifted dramatically in their favor due to a deteriorating political environment for Republicans worsened by the war in Iran.
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Another wrinkle is that the governor in Alaska could be a Democrat come January, meaning that any prolonged fight over certification could be resolved by a transfer of power in Juneau.
The latest polls show Sullivan neck and neck with Peltola, while the Democratic nominee for governor leads by as much as 23 points.