On October 28, 2026, six days before the midterm election, President Trump called for Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Alaska, to be criminally prosecuted and removed from the ballot. “In Alaska, I don't think Mary Peltola, after perpetrating such a terrible scheme, should be allowed to run, because this is ELECTION FRAUD,” he wrote on Truth Social. “She shouldn't be allowed to run, and neither should the FAKE Dan Sullivan!” In a later post he wrote that Peltola “should be removed from the Ballot and prosecuted — So should the FAKE Dan Sullivan.”
He repeated it to reporters that day. “We caught them cold, and Mary Peltola should resign from the race,” he said. “I think she should be prosecuted criminally for what she did, and I think that the people that participated with her should.” USA Today noted he did not identify which statute he believed she had violated. Asked on October 29 whether Peltola would be seated if she won, Trump said, “Well, you're going to have to see what happens,” and, “It's hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run,” the AP reported.
His demands followed a New York Times report, published October 28, that Peltola campaign aides and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staff were involved in an effort to recruit candidates to split the incumbent's vote, including Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. of Petersburg, who appears on the ballot alongside Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. NBC News said the Times cited interviews with 12 people and dozens of text messages. The tracker could not read the Times article itself; its contents here are as other outlets describe them.
The report carries caveats. It drew on Elisa Rios, Peltola's former campaign manager, who was fired in August and later contacted the Times and “retracted all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate Race,” NBC News reported; the Washington Examiner described her as having tried to retract before publication. The Alaska Beacon said it “has not independently confirmed the Times reporting.” Peltola's campaign and the DSCC deny involvement with Daniel J. Sullivan, who has said he entered the race on his own.
Recruiting a spoiler candidate is not itself a crime. Legal experts told the Beacon that the actions described “are not illegal but do amount to a dirty trick,” and The Hill wrote, “Despite Trump's comments, the alleged tactics are not illegal.” NBC's election analyst Stephen Richer said recruiters could be in the clear if there was “no inducement, like money or threats.” Trump's charge of perjury refers to the campaign's denials in court filings. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Fox News the recruitment “should be illegal” but did not identify a crime, USA Today reported.
Other Republicans called for scrutiny. In an overnight post, Gov. Mike Dunleavy ordered the state Department of Public Safety to examine “whether this scheme violated Alaska's laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted,” a day after Trump's call, the AP reported. Vice President JD Vance said “we should certainly look into whether she committed election fraud.” Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who backs Sullivan, said “ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process.” NBC News had earlier reported that state and federal prosecutors were investigating Daniel J. Sullivan's candidacy.
Peltola's campaign said, “no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight.” Peltola called the report “just another distraction.” The same day, the Justice Department cited the Times report to drop its opposition to the campaign joining its suit to block certification of the race (see Judge Dismisses DOJ Suit Trump Said He Ordered to Block Alaska's Senate Certification if Sen. Sullivan Loses), a suit Trump has said he ordered. No charge had been filed against Peltola when this entry was written.
Update (October 30, 2026): Asked on NewsNation on October 29 whether he would certify the result if Peltola wins while the matter is under investigation, Gov. Mike Dunleavy stopped short of committing, Axios reported. NewsNation, summarizing the interview, wrote that he says certification could be “stopped or changed” if an investigation finds wrongdoing. He declined to say he would send the certificate if Peltola wins, saying he needs “enough information to make that decision,” and said that if investigators find illegal activity the state will act, which “may, in fact, impact whether somebody is seated in the U.S. Senate.” Finishing before Election Day is “going to be difficult,” he said. Alaska's elections director certifies the race and the governor then sends a separate certification to the Senate, NewsNation noted; Axios noted that Dunleavy's term ends December 7.
A spokesperson for Alaskans for Mary called it “Dunleavy's threat to overrule the will of Alaskan voters.” Peltola said on October 29, “I knew nothing about any other candidate on the ballot except for me and the incumbent,” and, “I am not interested in tricking voters.”
On October 30 Trump told Kansas City radio host Pete Mundo, as Mediaite transcribed the interview, “You need about 190 IQ to figure out the ballot,” and asked, “what does incumbent mean? I don't know what incumbent means. Incumbent!” He called the situation voter fraud “as bad as what we went through in 2020”; Mediaite noted he has repeatedly and falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from him. CNN said he suggested Alaska's voters are not smart enough to understand the ballot.
Update (October 31, 2026): FBI agents have begun contacting donors to Daniel J. Sullivan, the second Sullivan on the ballot and not the senator, asking whether they were deceived, the AP reported. Agents reached donors in at least two remote Alaska communities and a couple in Massachusetts. In Petersburg an Anchorage-based agent left a business card at a boat dealership for Charles Flint, who gave $500 over the summer, and asked his son whether Flint felt he had been misled about which candidate he was supporting. “I don't feel like I've been misled at all,” Flint told the AP. “Everybody knows who the incumbent is.”
In Sitka two agents asked another donor, who asked not to be named, whether the contribution had gone to the Sullivan the donor intended; the donor said the agents were “scrupulously polite” and stressed that the conversation was voluntary. In Groton, Massachusetts, Pat Campbell said agents spoke with her husband on Friday. “They said they were from the FBI and investigating fraud in election contributions,” she wrote to the AP. “No, we had not been defrauded. We knew to whom we had contributed.” The donor accounts are the AP's; Yahoo News repeated the Petersburg visit, citing the AP. The AP report does not connect the visits to the state inquiry Dunleavy ordered.
On October 30 Alaska U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman confirmed a federal criminal investigation, which he said had been under way for several months, and said the Times report had brought a “significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska.” He declined to say what crimes are being examined and, according to CBS News as Yahoo News relayed it, said he was “not making any assumptions on whether a crime has been committed.” NBC News reported that the department had issued at least three dozen new subpoenas and document preservation requests by October 29, including to the campaign offices of Peltola and Daniel J. Sullivan. At a Daytona Beach rally on October 30 Trump again said Peltola “should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted,” adding that Blanche would make his own decision, Yahoo News reported, citing MS NOW. No one has been charged. Peltola told supporters she was “so deeply offended by these accusations about having any involvement with anyone else's candidacy.”
Update (November 2, 2026): On November 1 Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the Justice Department's certification suit without prejudice, and the department appealed (see Judge Dismisses DOJ Suit Trump Said He Ordered to Block Alaska's Senate Certification if Sen. Sullivan Loses).