President Trump has put a name and a charge on the Alaska ballot fight. Speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago Halloween party on Saturday night, the President said Senate challenger Daniel J. Sullivan changed his middle initial to run against Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan — calling it "voter fraud at the highest level." Sullivan, he said, has disappeared from the race because "he knows he's guilty." And the President named the two men he holds responsible for the scheme: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic lawyer Marc Elias "should be held criminally responsible" for it.
The President's argument is the one Alaska Republicans have made since the challenger filed: that a little-known candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot beside Senator Dan S. Sullivan is not a coincidence but a confusion device — voters intending to re-elect the Republican senator mark the wrong Sullivan, and in a state the President carried comfortably, a few thousand confused ballots could hand the seat to Democrat Mary Peltola, who is challenging the senator. It is why, as this page reported on Monday, the Justice Department has a criminal investigation running: U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman confirmed the probe is tied to Daniel J. Sullivan's candidacy, after the Department appealed the dismissal of its earlier case in the same fight.
The record, stated straight: Daniel J. Sullivan is a real, separate person and a filed candidate; no court has found that he changed his name or initial to deceive anyone, and neither Schumer nor Elias has been charged with anything in Alaska — the President's words are an accusation and a demand for prosecution, not a verdict. The criminal investigation he points to is real. For Alaska voters, the practical warning inside the politics is simple and worth repeating at every kitchen table in the state: there are two Sullivans on this ballot. Dan S. Sullivan is the Republican senator seeking re-election; Daniel J. Sullivan is the challenger whose name the President says was put there to steal the first man's votes. Check the name — the whole name — before you mark it.
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